Luck, or Something Like It
by Bagpipes4Ever
Summary: When bad luck turns a routine mission into a split-second decision, Raven and Jinx find themselves marooned in parts unknown. With only each other to rely on, they set out into an alien landscape in search of a way home, poised, perhaps, to discover much more than that. Major Raven/Jinx, minor Rob/Star.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello, everyone. I've been a longtime reader because of how simple these stories are to read from a phone or otherwise on the go, so I decided I should give something back to the community after having gotten so many hours out of it. I don't normally write fan fiction, so forgive me if I've made a formatting error or other faux pas somewhere along the line. I'm not entirely sure where the line is between a T rating and an M, so I went with M to be safe. I'm also not entirely sure what I intend in the future, or how graphic, so I thought M would be safer. I've also been fond of authors who leave more graphic things to separate one-shots that readers can pursue if they feel like it, so as not to intrude on the larger story. Anyway, this is the first of what will be, at the very least, several chapters. More character development on the parts of Raven and Jinx will happen beginning immediately in the next chapter, but this one was necessary to frame the narrative and to establish the setting.

Thank you for reading! As always, comments are what fuel the desire to keep writing these, since nobody gets paid for them.

 _Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately._

Chapter 1

Murphy's Law

"And you're _sure_ this is gonna come off?" Beast Boy worried, sitting on the couch of Titans Tower with his head leaned far over the back.

Behind him, Raven gently held him steady with one hand while the other worked a black marker on his forehead. "Hold still."

The changeling whined.

As Raven finished her work on Beast Boy, the rest of the team, led by Robin, entered the living area.

"Cyborg thinks he may've found a way to track these things back to the source. How's it coming?" Robin asked.

"Done," Raven replied.

Beast Boy sat up. "Wait. Don't you guys need yours?"

Removing gloves where necessary, Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire each revealed a rune written on the backs of one of their hands.

"What? Why am _I_ the only one who got it on my forehead?" Beast Boy complained.

Raven capped her marker. "Because you're the only one who didn't stop me when I tried to put it there?"

He threw his hands out wide. "That was an _option_? Since when is that an option?"

Raven shrugged.

As Beast Boy simmered, the rest of the group made their way to the couch. Robin proceeded to the front of the room and pointed a small remote at the television.

"Let's review," he said. Robin clicked the remote, and an overhead map of the city appeared on the screen. "Three months ago, localized incidents of bad luck start springing up all over the city."

Several blips appeared on the map.

"Right, but nobody thinks much of it at the time. We didn't even hear about it until a month later," Cyborg added.

The boy wonder nodded once. "From what we've been able to tell, they started out affecting the physical locomotion of organic creatures inside of a fifteen-foot sphere—people and animals tripping over themselves, turning ankles, et cetera. Then they got bigger." He clicked his remote again, and a group of bigger blips appeared on the map. "And bigger." He clicked a third time, and a series of increasingly wider circles appeared.

"Once they hit half a city _block_ and started to affect electronics, then we started lookin' into it," Cyborg said.

Another click and Jinx's face appeared on the screen.

Starfire's shoulders fell some. "A conversation with Kid Flash revealed that he and friend Jinx did the ending of their relationship two months before the first recorded incident…"

"He seemed okay, though," Beast Boy added quickly, rubbing his rune with his thumb. "And he said it wasn't nasty or whatever."

The assurance, however, did little to lift Starfire's spirits.

Robin clicked again, and the image of a cylindrical, gray canister appeared. "Analysis of devices found at several of the scenes seems to indicate that someone is making hex grenades."

"With or without Jinx's cooperation," Cyborg pointed out.

Robin conceded another nod. "And whoever it is, they're getting better at it. Raven's runes should protect us from the field effects, but if she has switched sides again, they won't do anything against the concussive force of a direct blast from her energy. Now…Cyborg?"

Cyborg stood up and approached the screen. A breakdown of the inner components of the metal canister appeared as he did. "When Jinx uses her powers, the energy is there and then it's gone. But when that kind of energy gets contained inside of one of these things for a prolonged period of time, it leaves residual traces in the metal. I did a scan of the city usin' that energy signature, and…" A bright red circle appeared on the map, vibrant in the center and fading toward its outer edges. "Either somebody stood under a ladder and broke a couple million mirrors, or…"

"Someone's stockpiling these things," Robin said sternly. "This isn't just about a few broken traffic lights or stubbed toes. Imagine it: every electronic subsystem inside of a nuclear facility failing at the same time, airplanes dropping out of the sky, entire hospitals full of equipment that just stops working."

"And, if she has not done the switching of sides, friend Jinx may be in need of our assistance…" Starfire offered sadly.

"That too," Robin said more gently, to which Starfire smiled a bit.

Suddenly, alarms went off as the red circle on the map quickly expanded to encompass the entire city—the tower included. A moment later, the tower went dark.

"Ah, man!" Cyborg groaned.

Robin grimaced, gears visibly turning in his mind. "That was no stockpile," he said gravely. "Titans, go!"

A warm and gentle sun shone proudly down on the residents of Jump city, inviting them out to embrace its golden glow and, indeed, the boundless freedom of life itself. However, on this _particular_ day, only the bravest or most foolhardy of those residents risked accepting or even leaving their homes; in fact, many had simply found a position—any position, no matter where or how physically awkward or uncomfortable—that they believed to be safe and refused to move at all.

Outside, birds plunked into windows or walls or floundered, flapping wildly, out of the sky. All manner of electronics, from traffic lights to television to cellular phones, .mp3-players, electronic watches and vehicles malfunctioned in shocking and sometimes dangerous ways. Earthbound animals found it difficult or impossible to take even a single step without injury, and the tiniest of tiny insects struggled in vein to roll over off their backs.

Cyborg and Robin held aloft by Beast Boy and Starfire respectively, the team arrived and assembled in front of a warehouse.

Beast Boy morphed back into his human form. "Why is it always a warehouse? Anybody else notice that?" he asked around to the others. "Seriously, we should just start with the docks. Like, every time."

"Any idea what's inside?" Robin asked.

Cyborg paused, his red eye momentarily brighter than normal. "Negative. Must be some kinda shielding. Whole place is dark. I can't get any readings at all."

"Raven?" Robin asked.

Raven, meanwhile, had already crept up to the side of the building; placing her hand near the wall, she attempted to produce a window to the other side but found her efforts thwarted by a thin but volatile magical interference that seemed to channel through the walls like an electrical current—like one, or being carried along one. Floating up to one of the actual windows, she found it one-way only.

She returned to the group and shook her head to Robin, relaying her findings.

"Magitech," Robin practically spat the word.

"I doubt I'll be able to phase or teleport inside, either," Raven said. "Using my powers at all might be a bad idea. I don't know the exact ratio of electrical, magical, and psionic at work here, but if it's reached the point that it's interfering with my powers, who knows what could happen if they bumped heads too hard."

Beast Boy swallowed hard at the thought of Raven's powers plus bad luck.

Jaw set, Robin drew his bo staff and made to extend it; it malfunctioned halfway and broke apart when the internal mechanism collapsed. He narrowed his eyes at the warehouse. "Cyborg, are your systems functioning all right?"

"Yeah. Must be 'cause they're a part of me. Just a sec." Kneeling, Cyborg released a tiny camera drone from his finger; a few steps toward the warehouse and it sparked, smoked, and fizzled out. "So much for that…"

"No sweat. I got this," Beast Boy said proudly, then morphed into a silverfish and scurried forward. A minute later, he returned and reformed, rubbing his head and a bit singed around the edges. "I, uh… I don't got this. There's like a layer of metal or something, real thin but wired up like an electric fence from the other side. All the walls are covered with it."

"Okay," Robin said with a hint of finality. "Starfire, left side window. Raven, right side. Cyborg, can you give us a flash-bang when we get inside?"

Cyborg smirked. "You know it."

"Good. Once we're in, the rest of us will secure the building. Cyborg, you find whatever is generating this field and shut it down—the right way. Remember: we don't know who we're dealing with, how many there are, _or_ if Jinx is on their side. Don't take any chances. If we have to, we can always pull back and regroup. Whatever's doing this, I doubt if it'll be simple enough for them to just pick up and move."

"What about me?" Beast Boy asked, pointing a thumb at himself.

One corner of Robin's mouth curved up into a tiny grin.

Moments later, the front wall of the warehouse came crashing in, metal and all, under the battering charge of a gargantuan, green dinosaur, which quickly became a tiny worm and plopped to the floor. Cyborg's flash-bang-equivalent washed over the newly renovated interior, followed immediately by the sound of windows being broken.

Inside, the team assumed combat formation, only to find themselves seemingly alone. A quick look revealed advanced scientific paraphernalia scattered about laboratory tables in the parts of the room still intact, with a litany of high-grade equipment that blinked and bleeped and blooped along the outside. A rack of the hex canisters—filled or empty, no one could say—sat off to one side, while a floor-to-ceiling machine occupied the center near the far end. An access terminal for the great whatever-it-was faced in their direction, as well as a small port window that glowed with pink light.

The seconds stretched on as the Titans waited, battle ready; as it sank in that they probably weren't going to be attacked, one by one, they relaxed some. Then, from behind the great machine, a figure stumbled out. Clothed inside of a high-tech hazmat suit, he nevertheless put a hand to the glass dome that protected his head, bracing himself against the machine with the other to stay upright.

"Chang." Taking advantage of the professor's apparent stupor, Robin strode right up to him, albeit quickly, and took him with both hands.

"Ugh!" Chang half grunted, half groaned as he was rudely swung around and pinned up against a wall. His eyes blinked several times behind his glasses, then narrowed in an attempt to focus the world around him. "You?" he asked in annoyance and disbelief. "What are you— How did you even _get_ here? You should all be tripping over your own feet by now!"

"Trade secret. Now, what's going on here? Talk!" Robin ordered.

"And where is friend Jinx?" Starfire asked.

Beast Boy looked around one more time. "Not even any robots? Dude, you're slipping."

"Hold on," Cyborg interjected. "How is any of this even workin'? Whatever field you're generatin' shoulda fried all this tech the second ya turned it on."

" _Oh_ ," Chang put on a sinister smirk. "I guess there _was_ a reason the tin man didn't ask for a brain." He lost some of his good mood. "Wouldn't be much good if it short-circuited itself, would it?"

Holding out his arm to scan, Cyborg turned in place. "The field doesn't actually take shape for about thirty feet in any direction, like a warp bubble for interstellar travel. Same concept, anyway: small bubble of normal space inside a bigger bubble of screwed up space."

"Very good," Chang said. "Maybe next he'll tell us how many human cells you need to graft onto an exoskeleton to give it a _soul_ …"

Cyborg didn't bite. "Nah. Like the man says: trade secret. So, why _are_ ya doin' this?"

Raven approached the machine.

Chang laughed. "Why? Why build a xenothium cannon? Or a freeze ray? Why pump enough radiation into a Russian teenager to turn him into a walking reactor? To prove I can!" His sly smile returned. " _And_ if I happen to sell my discoveries, well…a man has to eat. Doesn't he?"

"I've heard enough," Robin said.

"As have I," Starfire agreed, floating closer. "You will tell me what you have done with my friend now, please."

"With who?" Chang asked innocently.

"Jinx," Robin said.

Raven touched a hand to the machine.

"Pink hair, cat eyes, 'bout yea tall if ya count the shoes." Cyborg demonstrated with one hand. "Big fan of stripes. Can't miss her."

"H— _Oh_ , yes," Chang remembered fondly. "She came to me some time ago. Trouble with her powers, I understand. Very sad, very sad. Wanted me to help her understand them better. Paid very well, poor girl," he recounted.

Robin narrowed his eyes at the professor. "Where is she?"

"Here," Raven said.

All eyes turned to the empath.

"Come again?" Beast Boy said.

"She's in here," Raven told them, touching the machine again. Her brow furrowed briefly. "She's not conscious, but she is alive."

"Alive and unharmed!" Chang proclaimed. "And so you see, all is well. No harm done!"

Cyborg approached the terminal while Beast Boy did a double take. "Dude, she came to you for _help_ ," he said with distain.

"She did! And I did!" Chang asserted. "Look around! Have you ever seen her powers better controlled? At a higher potential? Think about it." He chuckled. "No more selling crickets in tiny boxes. _I've_ found a way to bottle luck! Well, bad luck. But you get the idea."

"Bottle a person, is more like it," Cyborg quipped.

"Why did she not come to _us_ for help?" Starfire asked.

"Who knows?" Chang asked back. "Still, I had wondered that myself. But, 'Her business is her business,' I told myself. Not my place to pry, you understand. I—"

Robin silenced him with a rough jerk. "Enough."

Starfire intensified the glow in her hands and eyes. "You will tell us how to release her and shut down your machine."

"Certainly," Chang said. "That's simple. Just cut the power, and everything goes back to normal. As easy as flipping a switch. Of course, the shock would probably kill her…"

"Don't play coy," Robin told him. "You planned to sell this technology. There's got to be a way to shut it down without burning out your only battery."

"Oh, yes. Of course there is," Chang said. "Or rather, there was."

"We have a problem," Cyborg said from the terminal.

"This was only meant to be a test run, you see," Chang went on. "I was working on shutting it down when you blew up my wall and set off that explosion, and I'm afraid something may have been…damaged. Energy is energy, true. But blending magic and technology on this kind of scale is very…delicate."

"The field is intensifyin'," Cyborg said. "If this thing's right, we've got about five minutes before it hits critical mass."

"What happens then?" Beast Boy asked.

"No way to know," Cyborg said. "The stronger the field, the stronger the effect. Concussive shock-wave, maybe. Maybe the field starts to affect biological processes the way it's fryin' electronics—strokes, blood pressure, internal organs. Maybe wide-scale molecular destabilization. The field's probability distortion reaches the quantum level, everybody's ions and electrons decide to shift, and molecular _bonds_ break down."

"Tsk, tsk." Chang shook his head sadly. "Bad luck, wouldn't you say? Of course, everyone in this room will be fine, but everyone else…"

"How do we stop it?" Robin pressed Chang.

"I already told you," he replied.

"Without killing her," Robin said.

"Oh, what do you care? She's a criminal," Chang dismissed the concern. "She broke me out of prison, loosed me on the world. It's her life or… Oh, I forget. What's the population of Jump City these days?"

"Jinx is our friend," Starfire insisted, adamant.

"Funny, when I have a problem, I usually come to _my_ friends for help," Chang replied.

"How?!" Robin barked.

"I don't know," Chang admitted finally, as though it should have been obvious already. "I didn't plan for this. If it were me, I'd just cut the power. We're in uncharted waters, here. But I'd say you have, oh…four minutes to figure it out?"

Robin's eyes darted to his teammate. "Cyborg?"

"I dunno, man," the metal man replied uncertainly. "Maybe I could… No. What if I…? Okay, what if I boost the power draw and cycle the excess energy through the surge reservoir? Burn off the extra juice without actually crankin' up the machine, but draw enough to brown out the power substation for this area."

"Isn't that the same as cutting the power?" Beast Boy asked.

Cyborg shook his head. "Brown out, not black out. Substation's gonna have a backup with substantial load reduction. Machine gets less power, trips a hard flag, initiates power-down fail-safe procedure on its own."

"That could work," Chang said. "Of course, if it doesn't, you could still kill her."

Cyborg looked back at Robin. "Best I've got, man. Maybe I could figure out somethin' better if I had more time, but…"

After a moment to consider and a shared look between his comrades, Robin turned again to Cyborg. "Do it."

Cyborg went to work.

"Calm under pressure, logical, decisive," Chang observed with praise. "Your mentor must be so proud."

Robin growled under his breath. "Ask him yourself on your way to Arkham. I'll handle the reservation."

"Oh, man…" Beast Boy craned his neck up at the towering machine.

The light faded from Starfire's hands and eyes, and she floated up to the porthole window, peering heart-brokenly inside but unable to see beyond the wall of pink light. Slowly, she drifted back to stand beside Robin, one hand clasped over her chest.

"Initiatin' power draw…now." Cyborg entered one more command into the terminal, and the hum permeating the room grew louder. The others stood in silence as he monitored the procedure.

Red warning lights spun to life on the sides of the machine; a siren blared.

"What's going on?" Robin asked anxiously.

Cyborg ground his teeth. "Gimme a _minute_ , gimme a _minute_ , gimme a—" His eye widened.

" _What_?" Robin asked again, more forcefully.

Cyborg typed frantically. "Somethin' damaged the reservoir subroutine. It's drawin' but it's not cyclin'."

"What's that mean?" Beast Boy asked, a bit more fearfully than perhaps he had intended.

Chang blanched. "It means the power isn't being cycled off. It's going into the machine." For the first time, he began struggling against Robin's grip. "We need to go! We need to get _out_ of here!"

"I thought everyone in this room was safe?" Robin asked him.

"No!" Chang cried. "Well, yes! When the _field_ was going critical! The _machine_ is going critical!"

"Which means wh—"

"Boom…" Cyborg stepped back from the terminal, eyes locked on the machine but unable to do anything more.

"Cut the power!" Robin ordered.

"We can't!" Chang yelled. "It's too late for that! We're already _past_ the event horizon! We have to—"

"No time…" Cyborg said quietly.

Chang took a slow, gasping breath.

Resolved to at least save who she could, Starfire burst forward into flight, by all accounts ready to rip loose the great machine and fly with it as far and as fast as she could before it detonated; before she could reach it, a low, loud warning buzzed, indicating in no uncertain terms that the penultimate moment had arrived and drowning out the sound of Raven's familiar mantra.

As the group recoiled in futile preparation, a black barrier enclosed the machine. It warped and flexed violently under the force of the resulting blast, muffling the terrible, cataclysmic crack on the other side into an awful, rumbling boom. Raven herself fell to her knees with the effort of holding the barrier in place. Those nearest to her in the last seconds might later have recalled a groaning sound that reached its crescendo in a strained cry, just before the barrier gave out, releasing the last vestiges of the explosion, bowing out the warehouse like a firework set off inside a tin can.

In the end, a detonation that would surely have taken most of the city with it had instead been reduced to one comparatively small. As the Titans picked themselves up and the dust settled and the smoke cleared, Robin was the first to his feet.

He coughed several times, eyes darting hurriedly from one spot to another in their search. "Raven?" he called out, and then again, louder, "Raven!"

But the center of the room was empty. Neither Raven, nor Jinx, nor any discernible remains of Professor Chang's horrible machine were anywhere to be found.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for reading! As always, comments are what fuel the desire to keep writing these, since nobody gets paid for them.

 _Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately._

Chapter 2

Survival

Consciousness.

In a moment, Raven became aware. Eyes still shut, she tensed at an oppressive wind that blew over her, steady and chilled. Sitting up and shielding her face from the wind with one arm as best she could, she opened her eyes.

Black.

Slowly, she opened and closed her eyelids a few more times to be sure. As panic began to worm its way into her thoughts, a spark caught her attention from the periphery of her vision. Somewhat relieved, she oriented herself in the direction the spark had been; at least she wasn't blind.

Her next surprise came when she attempted to erect a shield for herself from the wind: her powers wouldn't respond. Upon closer inspection, she found that, indeed, she couldn't manifest any of her abilities, which might have worried her more if she hadn't been able to feel her power at all. As it was, she could feel it—buried inside, present but unresponsive.

A byproduct of her interaction with the magitech generator, or it's detonation? Maybe. Temporary exhaustion. Clearly, wherever she was, she was not where she had been. She had been teleported, most likely a result of her powers mingling with either the hex field, the explosion, or some combination of the two. Depending on how _far_ she had been teleported, it wasn't inconceivable to think that her soul self may have been overexerted. It would correct itself in time, which was reassuring but did little to aid her situation. An attempt to call for help on her communicator yielded no signal.

Another spark.

This time, Raven saw it illuminate something metallic. On all fours, wind rushing in her ears and flapping against her cloak, she proceeded in that direction. Hard, brittle ground cracked or crumbled sometimes beneath her hands and knees, but she was soon thankful she had opted for the slower, more methodical approach. It wasn't long before she encountered a debris field, littered with metal parts and shrapnel that she carefully moved aside or maneuvered around.

A third spark told her when she had reached the source, which she found to be a familiar, body-sized capsule. She had sensed it earlier when she had erected the barrier around the machine and, deciding Jinx was probably inside, had devoted all the power she could spare to protecting _it_ after containing the explosion. Even so, when she was honest with herself, she hadn't really expected the thing to survive intact. Only when she touched it physically did she realize how reinforced it actually was, obviously designed to protect something extremely important in the event of catastrophic failure—which it had, apparently, and admirably well.

Feeling around the container until she had a workable mental image, she disengaged several locking mechanisms, forced to shut her eyes briefly at the light inside when she opened its hatch. Four slender, battery-powered L.E.D. lights illuminated the inside: nothing spectacular, but blinding to Raven's unaccustomed eyes.

The lights illuminated the surrounding terrain for a small distance, revealing the black, brittle earth and the wreckage. When her eyes adjusted, Raven recoiled slightly in shock at what _else_ they illuminated. Channeling what little she could of her powers, she passed her hand near the capsule's occupant slowly from bottom to top, concentrating and checking for damage. When she was satisfied, she set to work disconnecting Jinx from the now powerless machine. To her even greater surprise, Jinx began to stir as she lifted her out.

Placed in a sitting position with her back to the capsule, Jinx held her head and seethed, gritting her teeth.

Opting to stand, Raven watched her. "Are you…okay?"

"Ugh…" she groaned. "Anybody get the number on that bus…?"

"Explosion," Raven stated flatly.

Jinx peeked one eye open, still not even 'with it' enough to question her surroundings. "What?"

"No bus. Explosion." Raven recounted the recent exploits of Professor Chang and the result of their confrontation. Afterward, she pointed to the capsule. "You were in there. You're…well, lucky to be in one piece," she said, for lack of a better way to phrase it.

"Right…"

Beneath her hood, an eyebrow raised. "Why didn't you come to us? We could've helped you."

"Yeah, because ya totally know that," Jinx quipped.

"We would've tried," Raven told her.

"I thought I could handle it," Jinx said.

"You thought _Chang_ could handle it," Raven corrected her.

"I thought I could handle _him_ ," Jinx shot back.

Some seconds passed in silence between them.

Afterward, Raven asked curiously, "Why Chang? The Titans, the League—not like you didn't have options."

Slowly gaining coherence, Jinx finally managed to stand up. "Can we talk about my life story later?" She looked around. "Where are we?"

Raven joined her in taking in what little of the blight they could see. "I don't know."

"Okay, so we call for help." Jinx whipped out her communicator.

"No signal," Raven said.

Upon trying it herself, Jinx found her words accurate. "So…what? We need to find a cell tower?"

"We need to find a planet," Raven told her.

Jinx furrowed her brow. "What?"

"A planet in range," Raven explained. "Wherever we are, it isn't Earth."

"What?!" Jinx exclaimed.

"Look on the bright side," Raven suggested.

"What _bright_ side?!"

Raven held her arms out in a wide gesture, her face still its usual bland. "Air."

Rather than reply, Jinx simply turned in place, perhaps more quickly sometimes than was called for, eyes glancing to and fro; her chest rose and fell as her breaths came deeper and more quickly.

"You're panicking," Raven observed.

No response.

"Stop panicking," Raven said.

"So I'm panickin'!" Jinx snapped, whirling to face her. "Some of us have never been on another _planet_ before!"

"I have."

The assurance subdued Jinx some, if only slightly. "So where are we?"

"I already told you: I don't know."

"How do we get back?" Jinx asked.

"I don't know," Raven repeated.

"Well, what _do_ ya know?!" Jinx shouted.

Raven waited a few moments, as if to silently point out that Jinx was panicking again, then replied, "Somehow, your powers interacting with mine caused a teleport. That's how we got here. Wherever we are, it's far enough away that bringing us here taxed my powers almost to the point of exhaustion."

"Ya can't get us back," Jinx realized, panic losing ground to fear.

"Not yet," Raven told her calmly. "Over time, my powers will recharge. When they do, I can work on figuring something out. Until then, we can either stand here, or we can try to find some kind of civilization."

Jinx tilted her head at the absurdity of the idea. "Civilization? We could be _anywhere_."

Raven, meanwhile, began disconnecting the L.E.D.s inside the capsule. "Yes, but we're _probably_ somewhere I've been before, or at least a planet I've visited. The odds of being teleported, at random, to a habitable planet are astronomically low. It's much more likely that we're somewhere with which I already have a connection."

As Jinx watched, Raven held one of the amputated lights aloft; it flickered a few times before lighting in her hand. "I thought your powers didn't work."

"I can't manifest them, but I can channel them a little. What about yours?" Raven asked.

Jinx held out a hand, but nothing happened.

"Perfect," Raven commented dryly. "Here." She handed Jinx two of the four lights, keeping the other two for herself. "I can keep them lit as long as we aren't too far apart."

Jinx examined one of the L.E.D.s idly, while Raven closed the capsule. "You…go to other planets a lot, or…?"

"No."

"So…the list is pretty small, then," Jinx concluded, searching for hope.

"Theoretically." Raven moved her light wands about, getting a better look at their surroundings; the light didn't travel far and revealed, still, only the debris field and flat ground, dry and black.

Jinx did the same. She narrowed her eyes, peering about. "What _is_ this place?" she asked in disgust. "And what's wrong with those trees?"

Raven switched her gaze to her companion, but Jinx merely tapped a finger next to one feline eye with a smirk. "Good in the dark."

Together, they made their way to the trees Jinx had mentioned: a sparse patch of four crooked, gnarly-looking florae that gave the impression they might once have, indeed, been trees.

Securing one of her lights under her belt, Raven set the other on the ground nearby and examined the trees more closely, somewhat to Jinx's chagrin.

"Uh…" Jinx protest feebly. "Ya…sure you're not gonna catch somethin'…?"

"These have been dead for a _very_ long time," Raven assured her. Taking one respectably straight branch in hand, she broke it off. She held it beside her, gauging its size. Only afterward did she notice Jinx still staring. "We're going to be walking. You should take one."

Removing her shoulder adornment, Jinx tied it around her waist and slid the lights securely into it. She then approached the tree. "Got a lotta…" she grunted, pulling once on the branch, then again and stumbling backward a step when it finally cracked free, "outdoors experience?"

"Some. You?" Raven tapped her walking stick against the ground a few times to test its durability.

Jinx shrugged. "Wilderness Survival at the academy. Basic stuff," she said offhandedly.

Raven gave Jinx her full attention. "Such as?"

Jinx thought back, trying hard to remember anything useful from the old H.I.V.E. class. "Well, what we really want is some kind of camp. Somethin' stable we can explore around and come back to." She looked up at the trees. "We found wood. So that's fire, assumin' we can start one."

"I can," Raven said.

"Don't know when we'll find it again, though," Jinx considered aloud. "No guarantee we'll be able to stay around here. Not without food and water."

Seemingly in agreement, Raven unfastened her cloak and spread it out on the ground, using her stick and some of the crumbling ground to hold it down in the wind. She began breaking off more branches in smaller pieces and piling them onto it. Jinx assisted, and when it was full, Raven folded the cloak over and fashioned it into a makeshift pack, which she slung over a shoulder.

Raven adjusted the pack slightly, making it as comfortable as she could and at least avoiding any of the branches jabbing her directly in the back. "See anything?" she asked Jinx, who turned in a circle, peering out.

"Dark." Jinx groused. "Lots and lots of dark."

First, Raven returned to the wreckage to scavenge a few metal pieces that, while they might not transport water for long distances, might at least be used to boil anything they did find. Then, no better plan, she set out in a direction seemingly chosen at random. Behind them, their footprints, crunched into the brittle soil with every step, left a catalogue of their progress, easily retraceable. Ten minutes or so into their silent trek, Jinx shivered at a particularly chilly gust.

"Ugh," she complained, then caught sight of Raven's exposed legs. "How are you not _freezin'_?"

"Meditation," Raven replied.

"Bubble bath," Jinx added a few seconds later.

Raven paused, giving her companion a look.

Jinx put on an apologetic face and a snarky smirk. "Oh, were we not sayin' random things we'd rather be doin'?"

Raven rolled her eyes and resumed walking. "I meditate. A lot. It helps me regulate my body heat."

"So you're, like, one of those monks who sits in the snow in a toga or whatever?"

"No."

Silence settled in again, until nearly an hour later when Raven, a few steps ahead, abruptly stopped moving.

"What?" Jinx asked her.

Raven set down the pack of firewood, for the time being. "You tell me."

Jinx shook her head lightly at the remark, repeating her question without actually repeating it.

"I'm an empath."

"And?" Jinx asked back.

"Whatever's going on in your head is distracting. If you have something to say, say it," Raven told her.

"Like what?"

Raven waited.

Jinx's face hardened briefly in annoyance. She opened her mouth for a retort, maybe even a nasty one, but stopped; instead, her eyes turned downcast as Raven felt her ire drain away. "I'm sorry," she said.

Still, Raven waited.

Jinx's brow knit, a frown forming as her face contorted more and more to mirror the distress beneath her usual demeanor. "It's my fault," she said, unable to meet Raven's unwavering, unfeeling gaze. "I didn't— I mean, I—" Her shoulders fell. Her eyes winced. "I'm sorry."

"I know," Raven stated.

Jinx breathed a slow, heavy breath: in, and out.

"Feel better?" Raven asked.

"Not really," Jinx admitted.

"Good," Raven said simply, taking up the pack once again.

Jinx quirked her head. "How's _that_ supposed to make me feel better?"

"It isn't," Raven replied. "You endangered peoples' lives. Feeling bad about it is a good thing. If you had said, 'Yes,' I'd be worried. You made a mistake. What's done is done. All we can do now is fix it."

"Ya hope," Jinx pointed out.

"We're going to fix it," Raven promised, as much to herself as to her partner. "Either we find civilization, or I get my powers back and find us a way home, or the others find a way to find _us_."

Curious, Jinx decided to probe. "You're not gonna ask?"

"Ask what?"

"Why I went to Chang instead of you guys."

"I already did," Raven said, resuming course.

"I never answered," Jinx pointed out. "Well, not really. If it were bird boy stuck here with me, we wouldn't have gotten three feet before he gave me one of those _glares_."

"I asked," Raven repeated herself simply. "If you want to talk, I'll listen. But I'm not a dentist. You aren't wrong, though. You don't have to answer to me, but when we get back, you _will_ have to answer to Robin."

Nothing more said, they went back on their way, Raven confident that their conversation had done something, at least, to quell the turbulence at work in Jinx's mind.

Hours later, after twice switching off who got to carry the pack of firewood, they had encountered no more trees, or creatures, or bodies of water and had seen no indications of any. Had it not been for their trail of footprints, they would have had no indicator at all that they had even kept heading in the same direction across the seemingly endless expanse.

Even still, the lack of differentiation in the landscape wormed its way into the minds of both women, eroding all sense of progress in their journey no matter how far they wandered through the wind and dark. That, too—the dark—affected both a certain sense of claustrophobia and one of paranoia, as though at any moment some inconceivable, alien thing lay lurking and unseen, just beyond the light. A host of unknown horrors swam around them on every side, two lost minnows in a sea of inky black. Neither would have been surprised at all to have their lights illuminate some great body part or monstrous eye, rolling over and blinking in passing interest at the out-of-place pair before darting back off into the abyss.

As it was, they encountered no such thing, or anything at all. They did, however, come upon a mountainside. Swapping the pack one more time, they trailed the mountainside in one direction, until they found a cleft that opened into a larger cavern. Inside, they found both shelter from the wind and a trickle of water that dripped down into a tiny pool.

"Home _sweet_ home!" Jinx said with exhausted enthusiasm, dropping the pack of firewood like a sack of potatoes; it fell to the floor with a woody clatter.

Raven dug out some of her scavenged scrap metal and placed it under the trickle to collect. She turned back to find that Jinx had wasted no time in setting up a rudimentary fire pit, already using another metal scrap to scrape shavings from one of the branches for tinder. Although she had not complained since the start of their trip, Raven noticed Jinx's hands tremble as she worked.

Jinx sniffled in the cold, absorbed in her task and unaware of, or unconcerned with, Raven's observation.

Although they had yet to find food, for the first time since they had woken up, Raven found herself without the need to worry about her immediate surroundings. And as she allowed herself to focus on other things: namely, the forced hurry with which Jinx's hands scraped, the desperation present in her concentration, and the fear in her eyes. Jinx would not allow herself to feel it—to feel it, even a little, would mean to be utterly overcome by it—but she was afraid. It didn't take an empath to see that. Whatever dam she had built around those fears in order to maintain some semblance of her usual demeanor, Jinx was one small hole away from crumbling.

As Raven looked on, she considered the suddenness of the situation, how, from her companion's point of view, she had blacked out or gone to sleep one moment and woken up the next on an unfamiliar planet, for the first time, with no apparent means of getting back. Pragmatic rationality and memories of the Titans' previous miracles and conquests over the odds held Raven's own worries at bay, but a small-time villain-turned-hero like Jinx was hopelessly beyond her ken. And she knew it, whether or not she let herself acknowledge it.

One of Jinx's hands missed the mark in its numbness, and she snapped the stick she had been scraping. Before she could get frustrated, Raven knelt next to her and held the socket end of one light to the tinder; a tiny spark lit it, and Jinx stoked it eagerly but carefully until the larger stick teepee caught.

A wide grin spread across Jinx's face, as though just the simple comfort of warmth had done wonders for her disposition. She balled her fingers into fists and stretched them out a few times, getting the blood flowing as she warmed them close to the fire.

" _Hah_ …" she sighed with pleasure, rubbing her hands together briskly. "Not freezin' tonight!"

Wordlessly, Raven retrieved her container of water, now nearly full. She placed it by the fire in such a way as to allow it to boil. They sat quietly for a while in the flickering glow, listening to the fire crackle and burn.

At one point, Jinx stretched. "How're your powers?" she asked.

Raven mulled over the question and, even more, exactly how to quantify an answer. "It's…going to take time," she said finally. "I can feel them, but I still can't call them out. Yours?"

"Same, I guess," Jinx said, then had another thought. "Y'know, I always wondered. _About_ your powers. Meta, or just a sorceress? Human."

"Neither," Raven replied. She gave a mental sigh at what would come next. It _always_ came next.

Jinx gave her a stupid look. "How's that work?"

"I'm half human," Raven told her, hoping Jinx would drop it there but knowing that, like anyone else, she wouldn't.

A casual, "Huh," was Jinx's only response.

At that, Raven looked up from the fire to Jinx. "Aren't you going to ask? Everyone does," she said with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

Jinx glanced up with a smile. "Not a dentist." She winked.

To even her own surprise, Raven smiled back, unsure whether Jinx had noticed. Their conversation tapered off after that, and although Jinx had broken the mold in leaving Raven's parentage alone, Raven found herself unable to do the same. Perhaps she had become so accustomed to that particular line of questions and answers that the need to continue had become almost a compulsion. Perhaps some part of her believed that because of their situation, or because of her courtesy, Jinx deserved to hear. Whatever the case, it fluttered about on the tip of Raven's tongue until she finally set it loose.

"My mother is human," Raven said, by that point thoroughly out of left field.

Jinx looked up out of curiosity.

Raven stared at the fire. "My father…was a monster. A demon."

Jinx's brow rose in interest. "Was," she said.

Raven gave a single, solemn nod.

"You…?" Jinx inferred aloud.

Raven's eyes moved up from the fire and met her companion's.

"Heavy…" Jinx said in awe.

"Heavy," Raven agreed.

Some time passed, and Raven divided up the boiled water after it had been allowed to cool.

"My turn, I guess," Jinx spoke up eventually. "It…wasn't like there was a problem or anything. I'm not unstable. I just wanted to get better. And it's not like I didn't _think_ about coming to you guys. I mean, okay. My first thought's the League, right? They've got all _kinds_ of magic stuff goin' on. But I just… I don't know. I just _couldn't_ , y'know? I just switched sides. I just joined the team, for cryin' out loud. How's it gonna look if the first thing I do is go askin' for help?"

"Smart," Raven said in answer. "But I understand pride. You didn't want to look weak."

"Right!" Jinx affirmed, practically ecstatic that Raven got it. "At the academy, I was top of the class. On my old team, I was the one in charge."

"Looking weak is one thing, but you talk as though you had something to prove," Raven said.

"Didn't I?" Jinx pressed.

"You had already helped save the world," Raven told her. "What else could you have possibly had to prove, and to whom?"

Jinx said nothing, but crinkled her lips in annoyance and stared at the empath across the fire, as if to ask if she really had to say it.

After a moment of thought, it was clear when realization dawned on Raven. "Me?"

"Duh!" Jinx exclaimed. "What, ya thought it was _coincidence_ I always singled ya out when we went at it?"

"Why?" Raven asked in utter confusion.

"Uh, hello! Magic? Not only were ya the only one to use it, ya were _crazy_ friggin' good at it! You're seriously gonna sit there and tell me ya never noticed?" Jinx asked.

Raven suddenly got a bit sheepish. "Well, I…thought for strategic counter…"

Jinx sighed a dismal and sarcastic sigh. "Nothin' sadder than a one-sided rivalry…"

"So you're saying that this entire situation—all of it—is because you thought you had something to prove. To me," Raven clarified.

Jinx lost some of her fervor, embarrassed or ashamed, and switched her gaze back to the fire.

"That's stupid," Raven said.

Jinx looked up in confusion. "Say what?"

"You're extremely adept at what you do," Raven told her. "Metahuman or not, your degree of magical proficiency was always impressive. Comparing yourself to me isn't even really fair. My heritage gives me access to a wealth of power the likes of which _most_ metahumans will never see. My struggle is controlling it, learning to harness what's already there, safely, in greater and greater amounts. To have started from zero and sculpted yourself, by the same age, to the point where you could stand on an even field with any amount of that power, you ought to be proud."

Jinx blushed, hidden by the fire. "Thanks," she said, and then again. "I mean it. Thank you."

"Don't thank me. I only give praise where it's deserved. Ask Beast Boy," Raven said.

Jinx giggled.

"Speaking of annoying male companions, do you mind if…I ask a question?" Raven inquired.

Jinx's Cheshire grin returned in full form. "Oh, lookit _you_!" she praised. "Gettin' into the real girl talk! Sure, go ahead."

"What…did happen?" Raven asked. "Between you and Kid Flash. You don't have to answer. Normally I wouldn't even ask, but…I am curious. He won't talk about it, but not because it upsets him. I can feel that it doesn't. It feels almost like…" She considered. "Respect. Or trust of some kind, as though talking about it would be a betrayal. I can only assume to you."

"Wow, you're good," Jinx complimented her. "It's nice to hear that, though. He's a ladies' man, sure, but he was always a good guy."

"Like I said, you don't have to answer," Raven said.

"No, it's fine," Jinx assured her. "He and I always got along great, no big problems or whatever. Wasn't anything either one of us did, I just…" She paused with a nervous laugh. "You, uh…sure ya wanna talk about this?"

"Not if you don't," Raven said.

"It's not that. I just…don't wanna embarrass ya," Jinx explained.

"I don't do embarrassment," Raven replied.

"Okay…" Jinx gave up. "When the uniforms came off, I just… I don't know… I…wasn't into it, y'know?"

Raven's eyes got a little wider, though her tone betrayed nothing. "No."

Jinx laughed again. "No, guess not, huh? It wasn't his fault or anything, nothin' he did or didn't do. I think maybe I just…play for the other team."

As the surprise over the course their conversation had taken wore off, Raven returned to her usual composure. "I assume you're not talking about heroes and villains," she quipped.

"No," Jinx said.

"Well, that certainly makes things make more sense," Raven concluded. "If you haven't told anyone, then his feelings concerning going into detail are understandable."

"Yeah, he's a good guy," Jinx said. "Thanks, by the way. For tellin' me about your…y'know. Kinda makes me feel better about the whole hero thing, knowin' I'm not the only tiger tryin' to change stripes."

Raven smiled softly. "Any time."


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for reading! As always, comments are what fuel the desire to keep writing these, since nobody gets paid for them.

 _Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately._

Chapter 3

The Mountains of Madness

When they decided to turn in for the night, Raven moved away from the fire in one direction while Jinx moved a little closer to it. They had talked about having a watch rotation but decided it unnecessary given that they hadn't seen a single living thing besides themselves since their arrival. The fire had done a commendable job heating up the interior of the small cavern, and so Raven actually found it necessary to find the edge of its warmth near the back if she wanted to sleep comfortably. As comfortably as she could on the naked ground, anyway.

She settled in and lay down facing the fire, Jinx and, behind them, the corridor leading to the exit. As she waited for sleep to find her in the unfamiliar place, she saw her thoughts wander back to their earlier conversation. Not over any great or important matter, mind. More out of simple curiosity.

Since her arrival and the subsequent formation of the Titans, she had watched many of her friends and new acquaintances grow, mature, and begin embracing certain hallmarks of that maturity. Namely, in this case, forming romantic relationships, Robin and Starfire being by far the most pronounced. But there were others: Cyborg and Bumblebee, albeit unofficially as of yet. Beast Boy and Terra, regardless of how it had ended. And until recently, Kid Flash and Jinx herself. Raven was certain there were more out there, as well, no doubt developing between other, less familiar and less frequently visited members of their circle.

When she considered the utter lack of time she had devoted to exploring that set of feelings, it became almost a point of shame for the empath. Since being more or less set free by her father's defeat, she had promised herself to begin exploring her emotions in earnest. Of course, she was who she was. A lifetime of suppression had shaped her personality into the one everyone knew, and exploring her newly available emotions would not change that. At least, not at the start. Not at the flip of a switch.

Over time, perhaps, if she chose it. Certain avatars of her other selves inside Nevermore might even disappear completely if she became familiar enough with what they represented. But the act of truly absorbing an emotion was, in reality, a long and tedious process, done just a little day by day by allowing herself to feel it. It would take a great deal of time to absorb them all, if she even chose to do so. The truth was that it made her uncomfortable.

For as much as she wished no longer to be divided, the thought of actually doing so made her exceedingly uncomfortable. There was no spell, no ritual or incantation to merge her permanently with the parts of herself that had been sundered, no. It would be simple actions taken every day: doing things, saying things, changing her way of _thinking_ , and while the thought may have been romanticized when it was impossible, like some forbidden fruit, the reality of it now that it _was_ possible made her reconsider.

She liked who she was. Perhaps the greatest revelation to come of her friendship with the other Titans and her ousting of her father was that one: whatever she was, she _liked_ who she was, had been accustomed to the way her mind worked and, when she was honest with herself, found peace in it.

She had seen a news report once, some time before, regarding a new surgical implant that offered to give sight to certain blind individuals. Even those blind from birth, if they fell under the specific condition it could treat. Most hailed it as a miracle, but those who _had_ been blind from birth, interviewed by the program, while they had praised it, had also indicated that they would not prefer it. Blindness was the world they knew, the world they understood. To have sight thrust upon them now would have been not only terrifying but also would have required them to relearn _everything_ about the world.

Blindness was the world she knew.

Still, she had resolved at least to explore her newly available emotions. Many she had: allowing herself to tell or to chuckle at jokes, or to smile more often than she had previously, or to be perhaps a little lazier now and then or a bit ruder than she normally would have been, if the mood struck her. But there were still several emotions into which she had not delved.

Chief among them, of course, was Rage—for obvious reasons. But beyond that were others she continued to ignore for one reason or another. They were too inconvenient, or they were too alien, or they made her feel uncomfortably exposed. Those associated with romance tended to fall into any or all of the aforementioned categories.

Still, she had often pondered over them, since Robin and Starfire had embraced their relationship in earnest. For the larger part of her life, such things had been pointless to consider; the world would end before they would ever matter. Those feelings had received so little thought that considering them now continued to feel not unlike trying to conceive of the non-Euclidian.

And so she avoided them, knowing entirely well that doing so would only perpetuate the problem, if indeed it was a problem at all.

Cowardice, she had concluded. But even so, she could justify that as well: after all, cowardice was an emotion, too.

In the middle of her internal deliberations, Raven caught sight of Jinx by the fire. She had moved, the latest in a series of flip-flops between curling toward the fire and curling away from it. "You're still cold," Raven said.

Jinx looked up, half groggily. "Huh?"

"You keep tossing and turning."

"Oh, yeah." Jinx smiled some, playing it off. "Whatever side's facin' the fire is fine, but…can't seem to stay warm." She chuckled. "I actually feel like it got _colder_."

After brief consideration, Raven got up and made her way over.

Jinx gave a puzzled look as she approached.

"Tomorrow's going to be another long day. You need sleep. You'll stay warmer if we share," Raven told her.

"Share what?" Jinx asked.

"Body heat."

Jinx recoiled slightly, now wide awake. " _Uh_ …"

Raven paused, staring at her. "What?"

In the next few seconds, the series of emotions that washed over Jinx, dismissed or buried however quickly, painted a nonetheless accurate picture for the observing empath.

"Oh," Raven deadpanned, then raised a curious eyebrow. "Really?"

Jinx took a more defensive posture. "Really what?"

"Empath," Raven reminded her simply.

Jinx groused. "Seriously unfair…like an invasion of privacy, or somethin'…"

"Sorry." Raven's characteristic lack of feeling seemed to undercut the apology, even though it was sincere. "Why?" she inquired, attempting to hide the depth of her interest.

Looking away and still seeming somewhat violated, Jinx merely shrugged. To her surprise, however, Raven continued in her previous course. "What are you doing?"

"Sharing warmth," Raven said obviously.

"W— _Really_?"

"Are you still cold?" Raven asked.

"Well, yeah," Jinx couldn't deny.

"Then yes."

"Uh… Little weird, isn't it?" Jinx asked.

"Are you going to make it weird?"

"No!" Jinx denied, like she had taken offence.

"Then no," Raven concluded. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm tired. I would appreciate some rest."

Still noticeably uncomfortable, Jinx put up no more fuss when Raven lay down behind her—flat on her back, facing up, with her cloak spread over them both.

"Relax," Raven told her, practically able to _feel_ Jinx's heartbeat through the anxiety in her mind.

"Ugh," Jinx complained, blushing in a blend of embarrassment and misery. She forced her eyes closed, trying to comply. "Just…stop talkin'. Please?"

In agreement, Raven said nothing more. The fire crackled and popped, and over time, Jinx did manage to equalize to some manner of calm. Not long after that, her shifting stopped, some twitching occurred, her breathing slowed, and Raven felt her pass into the veil of sleep.

The empath herself, however, took somewhat longer, her mind occupied by thoughts of the unintended revelation that had put her companion so off-kilter. Although Raven had no personal experience with such things—physical attraction, perhaps a little, toward Aqualad years before—she was nevertheless well versed in the nuances of those emotions that indicated when one person had feelings for another. Beast Boy and Terra, Cyborg and Bumblebee, even Robin and Starfire in the beginning stages of their friendship, when the Titans had first come into being. Not the deep, satisfied feelings of a meaningful relationship, but the earlier ones of infatuation and attraction: a crush, as it were.

The suggestion of sharing warmth had inspired those feelings in Jinx, however quickly she had managed to hide them, and left little question at whom they were directed. In the end, Raven attributed little meaning to them, having learned long ago that one could not fault others for their feelings, only for the actions they did or did not take as a result. Jinx's feelings were hers. She could not control them, and she had taken no actions. Hence, there was no meaning.

Even so, Raven found herself unable to completely banish the thought. To her knowledge, she had never before been the subject of those infatuated feelings.

Beast Boy, perhaps. Although his had always been more…innocent, an unusual blend of childlike at some points and primal at others, but only briefly touching on anything of intellectual substance in between. Even those had withered in the time since Terra.

That Jinx's feelings had not been given life through action was true, and that alone should have been enough to put the matter to rest. And perhaps it would have been, in the time before her father's defeat. Now, however, even the ghost of such feelings begged the question: did she return them?

A simple question, or at least it ought to have been. Probably it would have been, for any remotely normal person. As it was, deciphering the answer, for Raven, was exactly as her mind had referenced earlier: non-Euclidean. So unaccustomed to thinking about people in such terms was she that, when it came to even so simple a question regarding such feelings, she could not even determine if she _had_ them.

No, that wasn't right. Of course she would know if she had them. They would give themselves voice in her mind, the instant they appeared. The bitter truth was that she did not know if she _could_ have them, whether a lifetime of suppressing and avoiding them had so stunted her development in that particular field that she was now incapable of cultivating them properly.

But the thought had been raised. That, in itself, was a start. Brought to her attention—the seed planted—maybe now something would happen. Was that how it worked? The next step? Did something develop on its own, some natural conclusion to which she would come? Or was more input required on her part?

Resolving to allow the notion some time to mature in her mind, she commit to sleep now and to revisit the issue later.

And so, for now, she slept.

Later, Raven shot awake to a loud yell. She found the fire rekindled, only slightly, and Jinx on the ground nearby, her demeanor suggesting she'd fallen.

Jinx's gaze turned on Raven. "Oh. _Real_ mature."

"What?"

Jinx picked herself up, dusting herself off. "Okay. I get it: don't wander off, or whatever. But if ya got your powers back, ya could've just said so."

"I didn't," Raven responded.

Jinx's annoyance turned to confusion.

"What happened?" Raven cut in before Jinx could say anything more.

"I…got up early. Figured I'd go, y'know…look for breakfast or somethin'," Jinx said, still uncertain. "So I start walkin', then… _poof_. I'm back here, flat on my—"

Raven raised a hand to signify she understood. "Show me."

Getting up, Raven followed Jinx to the opening of their little cave. Some distance away, a lone torch lay abandoned on the ground, casting its dim light against the gloom to mark how far Jinx had gotten.

"Try again," Raven told her.

Jinx crossed her arms petulantly. "Y—"

"I believe you," Raven cut her off again. "I just want to see it. Did it hurt?"

"No," Jinx admitted after a moment.

"All right. Then, if you don't mind…" Raven gestured in the direction of the torch.

Like she still wasn't totally sold on the idea, Jinx nevertheless acquiesced and, one step at a time, retraced the path she had taken. When she reached the torch, she picked it up and turned to face Raven, who gestured for her to keep going. Sure enough, a few feet later, Jinx disappeared without any subtle or spectacular display, as though she had simply stepped out of the world. The torch fell to the ground, and Jinx landed on her bottom not far from Raven.

" _Son of a_ —" she swore under her breath, then stood up and looked, disgruntled, to Raven. "So? What gives?"

Raven stood in examination of the phenomenon. "I'm…not sure."

"Your powers definitely still on the fritz?" Jinx asked.

Raven gave a nod. "It could be another side effect. When the original interaction occurred, I wasn't just trying to contain the explosion. I was also trying to protect you from it. Reaching out to you. The hex may have twisted that into some kind of tether."

With the newfound understanding, Jinx's frustration evaporated into a mischievous smirk.

Raven noticed, raising an eyebrow.

"I can think of worse things to be tethered to," Jinx teased, then shrugged as she did an about-face and headed back inside with a crude snicker. "No point bein' coy about it now, right?"

Before following, Raven caught herself pondering a moment over how, in her own way, Jinx had embraced her own method of straightforward practicality: where most individuals might have experienced a lingering awkwardness at having their innermost thoughts aired to the subject of their intimacies, after a night to sleep on it, Jinx had opted instead not only to accept the situation but also to take ownership of it through making light of it.

Without much more delay, they decided that following the cliffside would be their objective. It wasn't much, but being the only landmark at their disposal, it was all they had. It also afforded them the hope that they might find a travel path used by the native people of their abyssal abode, if indeed there were any such people. If so, a valley through the mountains might have served as a natural funnel toward a road to civilization, or at the very least a body of water created by runoff from whatever source lay at the other end of the water trickle in their cave.

If, by the end of that day's exploration, they failed to find any of the aforementioned or food, they would try climbing the following day. Thankfully, Raven could sense a resurgence in her powers as their fatigue started to subside. They would need a little more time to fully relax and recover, not unlike a muscle stuck in spasm after sudden over-exertion, but the news seemed to brighten Jinx's spirits even in the face of their lack of anything to eat.

With luck, her powers would return completely in the next day or two. They had water, enough wood to last if used sparingly, and would not starve in that time. Until then, Raven deemed exploration the better choice over meditation, opting to allow her powers to right themselves rather than try to meddle in their recovery and the hex variable by way of meditation or trance.

And so they went, significantly less hindered without the need to lug around their supply of firewood. Keeping the cliff or mountain range, whichever it was, to their right, they trailed along its base for some time. Their individual paces varied, sometimes leaving one or the other slightly farther ahead, but by and large they kept steady progress.

Conversation was sparse, Raven not particular predisposed to it and Jinx, as near as the empath could tell, otherwise indisposed with something in her own mind: a thought, perhaps, or something else that dredged up the same noxious sludge of doubt, dread, and perfect, undiluted fear that she seemed continuously to bat down, beat back, and bury before it was dredged up once again. When they rested, too, Raven found her companion, between the odd quip or characteristic snark, given to distant gazes into the dark.

Outwardly, Jinx appeared much as she ever had, save those worrisome far-off looks, which might easily have been attributed to physical or mental fatigue by anyone unaware of the emotional turmoil bubbling just under her everyday façade.

Opting to kill two birds with one question, Raven decided both to indulge her promise of emotional exploration while also attempting to draw Jinx's attention out of herself.

"Can I…ask you something?" Raven inquired as they walked, trying through her tone to veil her question in innocent, intellectual curiosity.

Jinx glanced over.

Raven kept her eyes ahead. "Why…didn't you ever say anything?"

From anyone else, such an utter non-sequitur might have prompted clarification. From Raven, however, and given the situation, Jinx grasped her meaning without much effort. She smirked. "Say what? Until a couple months ago, I liked guys—as far as I knew," she admitted with a chuckle.

"Rivalry," Raven acknowledged aloud, recalling their previous conversation. "So…what changed? When did you notice, I mean."

A spark of something in Jinx, a series of fleeting feelings—lightning fast, almost certainly involuntary—in response to the question. A mixture of intrigue and subtle curiosity that Raven had come to recognize as suspicion.

" _I'm_ not sure ya wanna get into that."

Raven merely waited, allowing her silence to push the issue in a way that words could not.

"Don't do embarrassment, huh?" Jinx's smile widened, almost deviously. "Ya sure about that?"

This time, Raven met Jinx's glance. Still, however, she answered with silence.

Jinx shut her eyes a moment, losing none of her grin, then continued with a sigh, "When Kid Flash and I, uh… Well, when the uniforms came off, like I said, I wasn't really into it. But he's a nice guy, right? So he's very… _generous_ ," she implied.

Raven tightened her hold on her cloak somewhat to assure it stayed up, lest her blush betray her.

"He wants me to have fun, too. And I am," she added quickly. "But I mean, I'm just not really…and he wants me to, y'know…and I don't want to ruin it for him, hurt his feelings or whatever, so I start goin' through my head to find somethin' to, y'know, get it done, and…well…" Jinx let in insinuation trail off, pretty sure she'd gotten the point across.

"Oh," Raven replied simply, feeling a warmth spread across her face despite the cold wind.

Jinx went on like it was nothing. "So, yeah. After that, didn't uh…didn't take a whole lotta work to connect the dots," she said with another chuckle.

Raven, however, had since dropped the topic like a hot stone, her attention swallowed whole by the end of the mountain range—more than that, by the end of the mountain itself. She stopped, causing Jinx to do the same and her companion's smile to be replaced by a puzzled look.

"I have good news and bad news," Raven reported.

"Yeah?" Jinx asked in mild excitement. "What's the good news?"

"I know where we are."

"Okay…" Jinx became wary. "And the bad?"

"You aren't going to like it."

As the wind seemed to pick up in eerie recognition, Raven felt an unrelated chill scurry up her spine at the crumbled monolith before them, the graven image that must once have stood in conquest and unquestionable dominion over the land and far into the sky, whose fallen form had come to rest in the creation of the mountainside they had found, followed, and sought shelter within. Her eyes peered into it, and its peered into her, stone and cold and unblinking: the cracked and broken four-eyed visage of Trigon the Terrible.


	4. Chapter 4

Thank you for reading! As always, comments are what fuel the desire to keep writing these, since nobody gets paid for them.

 _Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately._

Allosaurus, pandahero2p, and to the guest who all commented: Thank you so much! Comments are really the best thing we get for writing these, so I appreciate them more than you know. I'm so glad you're interested.

Chapter 4

Pathos

" _Where_?!" Jinx shrieked.

"My father's domain," Raven reiterated.

After the immediate shock, Jinx eased a bit at another thought. "And ya know that…how?"

In response, Raven moved one hand to better illuminate the obelisk's fractured face.

Jinx paled. " _Th-That's_ your…?"

"Was," Raven corrected her.

Jinx forced a smile. "Well…looks like somebody was overcompensatin'." She chuckled nervously.

Raven considered the relative size of the statue. "No, that's…pretty accurate."

Jinx snapped her attention to Raven in disbelief. "Ya said your mother was human!"

"She is," Raven defended, then realized Jinx's point. "He…looked human at the time. Demons don't…really have physiology in the way other creatures do. They choose forms that best reflect them, or that suit their needs at the time."

"Demon…" Jinx breathed out loud, eyes once again fixed on the monstrous face.

Raven detected a very distinct, very sharp spike of horror in Jinx's mind.

"Does that mean _we're_ …in…?"

"Not in the way you understand it," Rave was quick to assure her. "The way it's used in reference to my father, the word 'demon' is more symbolic of his nature. In reality, he was an inter-dimensional being of pure evil—cruelty, hatred, and rage incarnate—bolstered by the souls he had stolen from countless millions of worlds."

"Oh, yeah. _That_ makes me feel better…"

"By his thirtieth year, he had conquered his entire dimension," Raven went on. "I believe…that's where we are: the original seat of his power."

"His home planet?" Jinx asked, to which Raven offered a solemn nod. "So why's it all, like…" Jinx gestured around them at the dark, the wind, and the cold.

"First, he enslaved worlds," Raven explained. "Then, to strengthen himself, he drained them of all their energies, all their life." She looked up at the starless night, empty and infinite. "Everything here is dead, and has been for a very long time."

Jinx did the same, turning in place some to take in the whole scope of it all.

Raven knelt, taking a handful of the crusty earth and crumbling it in her hand amidst the wind. Her mind returned to the day her father had arrived on Earth, the memories colored by dancing pillars of flame and the sinister glow of molten rivers. "This place suffered my father's wrath completely unfiltered. Everything burned. An entire dimension, turned into a kiln of fury and suffering."

"But, so…shouldn't this place be, like…an ice ball? Without him?" Jim wondered.

"Residual heat." Raven stood up. "The water, probably condensate since the temperature fell. But it's a wonder we found trees at all."

Jinx felt her heart sink at the thought of what it would've taken to have left enough _residual heat_ , as Raven had called it, to allow them to survive. For a moment. In the next moment, she looked up again, and around, and felt it settle upon her that they were perhaps the first two Earthlings ever to witness pure, unabated darkness. No suns, no stars, no light-giving energy of any kind _anywhere_ beyond their little bubble. One of two living things alone in a starless universe. A shiver wriggled through her, though not from the cold.

Then, a final thought poured into the mix. She turned to Raven, eyes slightly wide and her mouth just slightly, unintentionally, ajar. "And you…?"

Raven felt the change in Jinx's emotions as they swept and swirled from one to the next, settling somewhere between awe, terror, respect, and disbelief. She stared forward at the statue. "He was… _severely_ weakened, when he arrived on Earth."

At that, Jinx's eyes widened in earnest, as though the two thoughts—Raven's residence on Earth and her claim to have slain her father—had not truly connected until that moment. "He came to _Earth_?! Where was _I_?"

"With everyone else, I imagine," Raven said, thinking back. "That…was always my purpose. I was his portal, his way into our dimension. When I reached the proper age, he would arrive through me, and my birthday…would be the end of the world. Every world."

"And ya _knew_?" Jinx asked in shock. "What the _f_ —"

"It's…why I became a hero," Raven continued, losing herself in memories. "When the League turned me away—"

"Turned ya _away_?"

"They—Zatanna—sensed my heritage and not only didn't believe my warnings but wanted nothing to do with me. So, I…decided to do good, as many good things as I could to try to make up for… And then, I met the others, and I started to think that maybe it wasn't so hopeless. Maybe they could…together, we could fight."

A pause followed, Jinx's eyes on Raven while her cloak flapped in the wind.

"When it finally happened, all of our fighting, everything we did to stop it, nothing mattered. My father arrived, and as his inaugural act, he razed the Earth and turned everyone, everywhere, to stone—in an _instant_."

Jinx blanched.

"At his peak, he was…all but omnipotent, able to alter reality on a whim. Forcing his way into our dimension weakened him, and eradicating all the life there exhausted him. My connection to him spared me, and their connection to me spared the Titans, but…don't give us more credit than we deserve. It was my father's arrogance that ended him."

Jinx's gaze moved slowly to the four-eyed face carved in the crumbling stone, her imagination trying in vain to wrap itself around that kind of power, that kind of _being_. Raven had called her father a demon, but her description sounded closer to a _god_.

"Well…'least he's gone now, I guess…" Jinx offered up what meager plus-side she could find.

"More or less," Raven half agreed.

"Ya said he was dead," Jinx said with a hint of concern.

Raven turned her head up at the void. "Death, in the permanent sense, is a very mortal concept. Some very poor choices by some very stupid cultists woke up something that had existed since before the universe, gave form to a force of nature. We put it back to sleep. That's all."

"So he's _not_ dead?" Jinx asked, suddenly much more worried about their present location.

"He is," Raven assured her, adding, "for now." She drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. "At any rate, we should go back. My powers will likely return tomorrow, and we won't find anything more by wasting energy wandering. We know that now." Raven turned and started back.

A few moments more to look upon the fallen monument, and Jinx stepped in alongside her. They walked quietly for a while, even Jinx's distinctly _not_ empathic senses able to detect the tension and regret their discovery had dredged up in her companion. When they reached the cave, Raven stopped at the entrance, seeming to take it in a second time now that the truth of the mountain had been revealed.

Raven started in mild surprise when Jinx moved past and took her by the wrist, dragging her in tow.

"Uh-huh, yeah. Super, mega, giant daddy issues. Got it." Jinx released Raven, rekindling the fire. "Gotta say, though. Not really sure what the deal is with the whole _sullen_ _angst_ …thing. Ya kicked his demon ass so hard he… _popped_ …poofed back into the aether, or whatever, like some video game bad guy. Handicap or not. I mean, congrats. Ya won. So…what gives?"

Raven stood in the doorway, as it were—somehow, she felt, in more ways than one—and considered the question. Perhaps, for the first time. Yes, almost certainly. As strange it as it was, as it seemed to her, she had never before truly considered that point of view. Or rather, that option: that she could simply…choose…to feel differently, about discussing her father, her heritage, the destiny afforded her at birth that she had so vehemently denied.

For her entire life, attached to those subjects had been the set of emotions Jinx had described: sullenness, angst, regret, sorrow, fear, doubt, nihilism, and a host of others. Until now, there had been two realities: emotions could be compartmentalized and shut away, or they could conduct themselves. She could choose to feel nothing, or she could choose to feel whatever emotions happened to surface. So foreign were they to Raven in their intricacies and actual natures that she had never even before entertained, never even _had_ the thought that she could simply _choose_ how to feel.

Her father, her past, her nature—she could _choose_ to feel differently. She didn't need to feel the way she did and, indeed, just as Jinx had pointed out, her victory over all of those things, by all accounts, indicated that she _should_ have felt differently now than she had before. They had been so deeply seated, so firmly ingrained in her mind since her birth that, even after her moment of triumph over them, they still shackled her with the feelings they continued to inspire.

But they didn't _have_ to.

"I…don't know," Raven admitted honestly, only a few seconds having passed during her entire mental exchange.

Jinx chuckled quietly, smirking. "Yeah, well… You're kind of a big damn hero, sounds like. Maybe try lettin' yourself feel like one for once. Some of us went bad, y'know, 'cuz we thought we didn't have a choice. Oh, I dunno. Bad luck powers, random example. Meanwhile, your dad's gonna end the world, and _you_ go girl scout anyway and buck the trend. And _still_ let yourself feel like shit about it. I don't mean to force-feed advice or whatever, but like…it _sounds_ like ya did everything right. So…why feel bad about it?"

Jinx glanced over when Raven approached and knelt beside her, watching the fledgling flames.

"You're right," Raven said.

Jinx grinned smugly. "Yeah? And?"

In the moments that followed, Raven took the first steps in reorganizing her feelings toward certain subjects, casting her old point of view into the fire in favor of the new one she had chosen to embrace: that she _could_ choose—not only when to feel, but how. It would take time, certainly. And patience, and practice, and many missteps while she adjusted. But the thought of it gave her peace, and in the meantime, she smiled.

Somehow, in the glow of their little fire there in the cave, secure in the hope of rescue when Raven's powers returned and nestled in remains of the toppled effigy that had once represented the truly insurmountable, an inexplicable sense of comfort shook off the cold and settled over them both. The pangs and growls of unsated hunger came and went. They had more water, though spoke little, neither finding it particularly necessary. For the moment, all that needed to be said—aloud, at least—had been said, and that was enough.

After a while, they again prepared to bed down, in the same manner as the previous night. Raven lay flat, looking up, while Jinx lay on her side facing the fire. Although it took a bit longer than it had before, her mind turning from one thought to the next as it mulled over the day's events, or even whether it had really been an entire day in the absence of any method by which to tell time. But after a while, Raven, too, succumbed to sleep.

Sometime later—hours, perhaps, though she couldn't say for certain—Raven found herself awoken when she had, apparently, made to roll to one side. Her inability to do so had drawn her back from a dreamless slumber to find a weight on her sternum. When her eyes adjusted, she found an arm. At some point, Jinx must have turned over, one arm and part of her body slung over the empath.

A simple thing, as Raven understood it. The byproduct of conditioning during infancy to search for sources of warmth during sleep, particularly bodies and typically instilled first by a person's mother, then reinforced by any number of stuffed animals. She had even read studies indicating that fully grown adults often slept better and more soundly by holding a pillow in a way not dissimilar to the way Jinx's arm draped over her now. Unconscious and, to Raven, innocuous, the act represented nothing to her upon first viewing.

However, in the context of a question she had posed to herself earlier—did she reciprocate Jinx's feelings—it began to take on a new light. Whereas Raven would normally have dismissed it entirely, now she found herself examining it: how it felt, not just how it made her feel, but how it literally, physically felt.

A lifetime spent at arm's length from just about everyone had left Raven both accustomed to that distance, now thoroughly invaded, and _un_ accustomed to the otherwise simple sensation of human warmth, of contact. Something people like Starfire mightn't even have noticed gave her pause at its…strangeness. A thing that even young children could simply appreciate at face value as a natural part of being human, Raven found herself made to deconstruct by the oxymoronic nature of its simultaneous long-gone familiarity and undeniable alien-ness.

Why should it have felt that way? At what point in her life had human contact, outside of a fleeting hug or handshake, become _foreign_? Of course, she had never been overly fond of such things; that was her personality, a part of who she was. But when had it slipped so _far_?

Her heart sank a little at the idea of it. How _sad_ a creature had she become, really?

And so, rather than remove the offending appendage and merely allow herself back into the arms of sleep, Raven found herself compelled, somehow, not only to allow it to continue, but to drink in its every sensation: the light weight, the faint but radiating warmth, the sound of her companion's slow, restful breaths and the tiny movements of her arm that came along with them—hyper-aware of them all.

Raven's right arm, poised to squirm its way from underneath her slumbering companion, instead came to rest, even to her own surprise, on Jinx's back rather than back down on the ground. Emboldened somewhat by the harsh accusations swirling against herself in her mind, Raven allowed her curiosity some freedom.

Her fingertips touched gently against Jinx's form, experiencing the temperature, the firmness and the give with each rise and fall, all of the unique qualities of another body, not normally given such careful consideration.

Then, a break in the rhythm.

Jinx stirred, awareness congealing slowly as conscious thoughts and feelings took shape: fatigue, then comfort, followed by confusion. At that point, realization struck like a static shock, and Jinx moved sleepily but quickly to get off once she realized her position.

A second wave of realization came when, in the course of doing so, she noticed Raven's hand upon her. Surprise, then, uncertainty and that unnamed emotion brought alive with the fluttering of a heart. If she had been unaware before, there could be no question when, looming above after pausing halfway through moving, Jinx allowed her eyes to focus down: Raven was awake.

They stared in silence, Raven a step removed as she allowed her curiosity reign, Jinx a stark contrast in her rising crescendo of indistinguishable emotion, a torrent of wants and doubts at once pulling her away and forcing her still.

Raven's eyes widened, her own heart skipping a beat or two when, without warning, Jinx darted down and touched their lips together. After a moment, she withdrew just as quickly, wracked by a sudden surge of elation and horror at what she had done. She made again to move.

Raven's arm over her back remained still.

Although she could not be certain, Raven entertained the thought that, just then, she had perhaps moved her head slightly forward, just a bit, out of some unfamiliar reflex or compulsion.

Her eyes betraying her every fear, even still, Jinx leaned in again, more slowly, seeking validation or asking permission this time for what she had taken before.

Raven supposed she must have given it, however and in whatever form, because not long after, their lips touched a second time—an entirely closed-mouth affair, but this time, Jinx did not draw back.

Raven closed her eyes in examination, to remove the distraction so as to better focus on the new litany of sensations: the feel of strange lips on hers, of foreign breaths against her face, of the veritable _onslaught_ of relief, shock, and excitement emanating from her partner that seemed to permeate into her as well.

She noticed her own heart begin to race, her face begin to flush and grow warm, the muscles in her chest and stomach tightening at the realization that she was kissing back and had no idea when she had started to do so or why.

Utterly inexplicable. The entire series of events, a whirlwind of emotions inspiring actions inspiring emotions: Jinx's every feeling projecting so strongly onto Raven, causing her to react, and her every reaction evoking more feelings in Jinx as more and more wordless momentum continued to build.

A particularly heated emotional bombardment saw Raven's other arm join in their activities, wrapping them both up around Jinx's shoulders as if to pull her in; Jinx moved on top in earnest, fueled by the consent into an even more feverish display: kisses, short or long, pulling back only briefly to return again for more, both with eyes shut and both utterly afraid to speak or to slow down.

To do either invited time to pause, time to think, time to consider the reality outside of the remarkable sensations being so freely given and received. For Raven, something she did not, could not understand but could not and would not attempt to argue that she did not enjoy. For her partner, the realization of some long-held and closely kept fantasy, being made manifest right before her eyes. And neither one willing to risk losing whatever incomprehensible but no less inarguable _rightness_ they had managed to stumble upon.

It felt good, and that was as much as either one of them cared to know.

Jinx's head moved to one side, down to Raven's neck, and Raven jolted slightly at the guttural, wholly uncharacteristic sound that escaped her when she felt teeth, not enough to have left a mark but certainly enough to have been noticed.

Raven opened her eyes at a particularly odd…something…rising inside her in swells the longer they went on. Her heart pulsed heavily, causing her vision to go fuzzy when it did, and with a sudden urge she failed to control, her fingernails pressed into Jinx's shoulders and dragged down her back. Not even enough to tear clothing, let alone the skin beneath—Jinx even seemed approving, in fact—the largely involuntary act brought Raven thoroughly back to that dreaded reality they had kept so busy to avoid.

Reluctantly, she eased Jinx up and away, her chest rising and falling in quick succession as she met Jinx's wanting, half frightened eyes. "We have to stop," she breathed.

"Why?" Jinx asked, breathing heavily. After a few seconds, she returned more to herself. "Okay," she said, thankfully not in disappointment or discouragement, but with sincerity, out of respect for Raven's wish to stop.

No more talking, Jinx settled back down. Even through her own mental deliberations, Raven could not help but be aware of the worry creeping into the back of Jinx's thoughts, concern that she had done something wrong. Unwilling to let the experience be ruined, before the meta could attempt to move back to her own side, Raven took the initiative to position them much the way they had been when she had awoken. Reassured, Jinx rested against her, her arm over the empath while Raven's held her there.

How long it took for Jinx to return to sleep after that, Raven could not have said. She did, eventually, as did Raven herself, when the adrenaline had fully faded. But in the meantime, Raven found her thoughts caught in the gravitational pull of that peculiar impulse, the one responsible for the curiosity that had instigated their volatile intimacy, as well as for the unadulterated sound she had uttered, the way she had raked her nails—much, much more lightly than said impulse had intended—and a host of other thoughts that had so unsettled her in those final moments as to bring the entirety of their momentum to a dead stop, for fear of what might have happened if they had not.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thank you, to everyone who reviewed! And to TacoKing, I'm glad you enjoy my writing style. This is a big departure from my usual niche, which is first person existential/supernatural horror. I'm used to using the way a character paints an environment or a set of thoughts as a method for conveying narration, but fan fiction is a totally different monster; narrative exposition, narrative introspection, they're not just acceptable but expected. It's been hard to get used to.

Thank you for reading! As always, comments are what fuel the desire to keep writing these, since nobody gets paid for them.

 _Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately._

Chapter 5

Homecoming

Raven woke first, however much time later. The entire experience—that is, slipping into sleep from and waking into the same empty void of a world—had begun to take on an almost fantastical quality: as though she never truly woke at all, but instead merely shifted between different dreams.

This time, however, she had awoken to a feeling unrelated to the cold or even to the body still unconscious against her. A formless fullness in her center told her that her powers had returned, but that was not what had drawn her back from the other dreamland. No, instead it was a gentle tugging on her aura.

The muddled, myriad uncertainties of a mind returning to consciousness. Then, clarity. Recognition, worry, and regret. Jinx had awoken.

For a moment, the mustering of certain other emotions seemed to indicate that Jinx would speak, but hesitation set in at the last moment.

"So…" Raven began for her.

Jinx sat up. "Yeah…"

More worry, anxiety, snowballing in the pregnant pause between them.

Raven took a slow, centering breath, and then, compartmentalizing any other feelings she might have had, donned the mantle of practicality to address the elephant directly. "You want to talk about what happened, and we will. But now is not the time. My powers are back, and after a few hours of meditation to draw them out, I should be able to get us home. Then, we'll talk. It's…complicated. For now, just remember: I…didn't push you away."

Jinx seemed to take a few seconds to assimilate the information. Then, she smiled. "No beatin' around the bush with ya, is there?"

Raven raised an eyebrow. "Empath." Then, her expression saddened somewhat, as though in preparation to broach a more difficult subject.

Before Raven could continue, Jinx perked up, but not at their conversation. She listened intently for a moment, then stood up, making it clear through her posture that she had heard something outside. A look down at Raven indicated that, whatever it had been, it hadn't been the wind.

Jinx flexed her fingers on her right hand and grimaced at the distinct lack of pink. " _Tch_. Got _yours_ back, at least."

"Bad luck?" Raven quipped, retrieving their lights; the lights were enveloped in black before being levitated over, one for each of them, as well as Jinx's stick.

The lights flickered to life, and together, they moved cautiously toward the exit. When the mouth of the cave came into view, illuminated by the lights, they both stopped; Jinx took a step back, while Raven's mouth opened slightly in surprise at the gangly, wretched thing making its way toward them, propelled by stiff, erratic movements.

Vaguely humanoid in its size and shape, the frightful being exhibited no finer features of any kind, its body enshrouded by dim, white light that seemed to rise from it like smoke, as though the creature itself was not entirely stable but rather in a state of perpetual evaporation and reconstitution. It moved close to the ground, six discernable limbs of equal proportion dragging it along one or two at a time in awkward, disturbing semi-locomotion, and was, for its part, completely silent.

Clearly, Jinx had not heard it as she had seemed to have believed. More likely, she had _felt_ it, much the same as Raven; as it drew nearer, the tugging on her aura grew more pronounced, never powerful but ever more prominent.

A horror. Not the Hollywood kind, unconcerned with jump scares or gore, not as frightful in its appearance as it was in its _existence_ : a real horror, one that assaulted the mind and the spirit in equal measure merely to look upon the sheer wrongness of its being, that made the eyes water and the hands tremble in the most primal, palpable fear, at once unquantifiable and undeniable.

"What…is _that_?" Jinx asked in disgust.

Raven set her jaw, hardening her expression. "You…know how, when you eat a peanut, you eat the inside and throw the rest away?"

Jinx turned warily to her. "Yeah…"

"Replace 'peanut' with 'soul,'" Raven said.

A jolt of fear, then an underlying sympathy. Jinx looked again upon the thing.

"I already told you that my father could alter reality," Raven went on, postulating out loud. "It would seem he changed the rules in this dimension and gave souls form. Either he…consumed them all at once and amused himself by allowing the shells to suffer, or he—" She stopped short as the next series of dots connected in her mind and their repercussions dropped her heart like a stone.

"Or what?" Jinx pressed her, the thing drawing closer.

Raven's eyes widened, still processing all the possible implications. "O-Or he…didn't consume them at all…used them like batteries…"

Jinx furrowed her brow, confused by Raven's sudden shock and feeling like she'd missed a punchline somewhere. "So, what?"

"So my power comes from _him_ ," Raven insisted. "Two pools filled by the same water, and when I defeated him, I only did it by drawing more of it to my side." Her eyes held fast to the creature, its every misshapen, unnatural feature, unable to blink or to look away, captivated by an all new kind of terror. "By using _them_ …just like…just like…" Her voice trailed off in a whisper.

Somewhere in the darkest, most paranoid corner of Raven's psyche, a sinister smile let slip a cruel and gravelly laugh in final, posthumous victory.

Keenly aware of Raven's precarious teetering over the edge of a panic attack, Jinx weighed her options briefly before taking the initiative—and Raven's wrist.

"Don't touch it!" Raven cried.

Empath in tow, Jinx used her walking stick to shove the creature to one side so they could pass. While not completely solid, the creature did move enough for them to get by.

Outside, Jinx halted, considering where best to go for Raven to clear her head and start her meditation.

Then, the ground around them began to radiate a feint glow. Up from the charred, brittle earth emerged a host of otherworldly horrors not dissimilar from the first. Their shapes, sizes, and levels of individual deformity varied greatly, but that they occupied the same tortured existence was unmistakable.

In short order, a small army beset them on all sides, crawling and lurching toward them.

"So, about those powers," Jinx pointed out with urgency.

"I-I can't," Raven declined.

Jinx's head whipped around to her in a flash. "Come again?"

"Think about it," Raven insisted. "We've been here for days and didn't see them. They only appeared when my powers came back. I can feel them pulling on my energy _right now_. I don't really want to find out what happens when I give them a hardline to my _soul_."

Swearing under her breath, Jinx latched onto Raven again and took off running in the direction they had walked the day before but with no place specifically in mind.

She knew they needed _away_ , whatever that meant. And until they figured it out, the best they had was to move.

Even as they did, no matter how far or how fast, the ground glowed beneath them and gave rise to the legion of nameless blasphemies that flanked them everywhere they went. Thankfully, their stilted movements were not quick ones, and avoiding them required no special agility or attention.

They ran until the random appearances of the creatures managed to combine in a perfect storm that left them boxed in with their backs to the mountainside. Out of options, and with more of the things congealing from the mountainside itself, the twosome stood surrounded. Jinx more than her partner, they readied to put up whatever meager resistance they could offer.

The air around them crackled. Tiny but unmistakable arcs of electricity sparked nearby, stronger and more frequently over the course of only a few seconds before culminating in an ear-splitting _snap_ and a blue portal.

Jinx grinned, her vigor renewed. "All right, tin man!" she praised, grabbing Raven and making a break for it.

Jinx was not wrong; Raven could recognize the energy that comprised the portal, and had no doubt that it would lead them home. The thought, however, triggered another realization. "Wait!"

" _Sayonara_!" Jinx sneered at the creatures as she passed the finish line, Raven only a moment behind.

A flash of light, and Raven found herself on her hands and knees in Cyborg's workshop, free of Jinx's grasp.

Jinx herself drew a mighty breath, spun once in place, and let out a satisfied sigh. " _Ah_!"

Raven said nothing and did not move, head down and eyes on the floor. She pinched her eyes closed, her stomach twisting into a knot when she felt it: Jinx's elation giving way to surprise, curiosity, and finally, dread.

The portal closed.

Jinx's eyes widened, and she stood still in place. There, in the windless room, her arms moved up slowly, holding herself lightly. "I'm still cold," she realized.

"Raven!" Starfire flew forward.

Jinx flinched when Starfire passed through her on her way to the empath.

"You are…all right?" Starfire asked, stopping short of touching Raven.

"I'm sorry," Raven said.

At the apology, Jinx fell to her knees.

Robin moved forward next. When he offered his hand to Raven, it passed through Jinx's chest, causing her breathing to hitch as she held herself more tightly.

"Are you okay?" Robin asked Raven. "After we realized you teleported, it took Cyborg a few days to track your energy signature and rig up a machine to bring you back."

"Easier when ya stay in the same dimension," Cyborg added kindly.

"Where's Jinx?" Robin asked. "Was she with you? Did she make it?"

Jinx took in and let out a shaking, sniffling breath as she lost ground against the urge to cry. She smiled a sad smile, tears welling up. "No," she squeaked out, her jaw trembling. "She didn't…"

"I…told you the hex field created a tether, because I reached out to you," Raven explained. "That's true, but…it's more than that."

Jinx choked out a morbid laugh.

"It…didn't tether your body," Raven went on, confusion overtaking the rest of their audience as they struggled to follow the strange monologue. "It tethered your soul. And because I'm half demon, it…bound it to me. The farther you were, the colder you felt, until you reached the limit and… This dimension is different. Souls…aren't corporeal here."

Cyborg caught on first. "Oh, man…"

And then Beast Boy, whose eyes widened. "Dude…"

Starfire clasped a hand over her mouth with a stifled gasp.

"She's…here?" Robin asked. "Where?"

Raven's only response came in the form of an agitated glare, indicating Jinx's position.

When Robin realized, his hand snapped back like he'd touched a hot stove, eyes wide under his mask.

"Well, that's that, then, I guess…" Jinx laughed again.

Although her demeanor had appeared to lighten, Raven could feel every ounce of pressure building inside Jinx's turbulent soul. A light breeze kicked up inside the lab, causing the others to brace for they didn't know what. "Jinx—"

Frustration.

"So much for that whole _redemption_ thing, huh?" Jinxed asked no one, hands balling into fists. "Totally overrated, am I right?" Her shoulders shook as she started to cry.

"I—"

The breeze picked up into a blustery wind.

Anger.

Jinxed let slip something between a chuckle and a sob. "Gotta admit, though… Woulda really liked to get through that whole _figurin' myself out_ thing… Oh, well…" She sniffled again.

"Raven?" Robin asked, confirming whether he should be worried.

A gale-force gust preempted any response from the empath, pinning Beast Boy to the wall and forcing the others to fight to stay standing against the miniature tornado brewing in the room. Lab equipment of insufficient weight was blown to the perimeter, Raven erecting a small barrier to shield herself.

"Raven!" Robin called out. "How do we—" He grunted when another gust knocked him back, caught by Starfire who helped keep him upright.

"You need to listen!" Raven shouted, getting to her feet. "I can fix this!"

Jinx laughed. "I know you're new at… _this_ , or whatever." She gestured between them. "But…little advice? Don't lead a girl on."

"I'm not!" Raven claimed adamantly, then lost some conviction. "I…didn't. I said it was complicated. I…made a mistake, got curious, lost control…"

The wind eased some.

Jinx turned to Raven. "Was it? A mistake?"

Raven turned her eyes downcast, ashamed. "Your soul is _bound_ to me. The walking stick, the firewood…everything else…no matter what I said, you couldn't say no. More than that, you wouldn't have _wanted_ to. Even now: I told you to listen. I wanted you to calm down, and you are—subconsciously, reacting to _my_ will and believing it's yours. I…never meant to, but I took advantage, and…I'm sorry…"

The wind died down nearly completely.

"No, ya didn't," Jinx said.

"You don't know that," Raven contested. "You _can't_. That's the whole point."

Forced to agree, Jinx offered a shrug. "Maybe not. But…all that stuff I said? About when I was…alive," she winced saying the words. "It wasn't a lie. Did ya think about me like that _before_ I brought it up?"

"No," Raven admitted, realizing after exactly what that meant.

Jinx smiled. "Then maybe ya made me an offer I couldn't refuse, but…I wouldn't have wanted to. Too bad, huh? Not that it matters, now…"

"I said I can fix this," Raven repeated herself.

Hope, the tiniest of candles. "How?"

"Like I said: your soul is bound to me. I can do what I want _with_ it," Raven said.

Jinx sported another small, sad smile. "Kinky."

"The capsule meant to preserve your body in the event of catastrophic failure did exactly that, and draws power directly from your energy. When I found you, I disconnected you from everything but the life support. There isn't anything _wrong_ with your body," Raven insisted, adding afterward, "Well, except the obvious."

More hope.

"While _I_ might not be able to go back there, the others can use Cyborg's machine to retrieve your body. And because I have dominion over your soul, I should be able to put it back. Think of it like…an extended out-of-body experience."

Tentative optimism, but tempered by trust. Raven breathed an internal sigh of relief. "I…didn't know what sort of effect it would have on you, if I told you," she admitted. "And we didn't have a way to transport the body anyway, so I thought… I…did mean to tell you, before we came back."

A few seconds ticked by in silence, no one else in the room willing to speak until Raven gave the all-clear.

"So…what now?" Jinx asked.

"Now, I start by answering some questions," Raven decided, opening the floor to the group.

Glancing between the others, Beast Boy slowly raised his hand. "What?" he asked, just…in general, about everything that had just happened.

Over the next half hour or so, Raven relayed the events surrounding Jinx and herself over the last few days, leaving the more personal points to implication rather than detail. For their part, the others recounted the turning over of Professor Chang and the disposal of his research. Then Cyborg explained how they had managed to track down the pair: figuring out that Raven had teleported had been the easy part, but to find out where she'd gone, they had resorted to taking a play from one of her spell books and blending it into Cyborg's machine in a little magitech of their own.

"After the first couple days, I was startin' to think maybe it didn't work," Cyborg admitted. "But if your powers were outta commission, that explains why it couldn't pinpoint your location."

"I'm impressed you managed to get the spell to work at all," Raven told him.

Cyborg shrugged. "Nothin' too complicated. When your family needs ya, ya do what ya gotta do."

Raven smiled. "Thank you. All of you."

"We're just glad to have you back," Robin said.

"And friend Jinx, as well," Starfire added.

"Feel the love," Jinx quipped, fully aware that no one but Raven could hear her.

"So…you made out?" Beast Boy asked.

The group turned to him, unimpressed.

"What?" he complained. "It's _Raven_!"

"I just told you that I removed Jinx's soul from her body before teleporting us to my father's home dimension where we were accosted by the husks of its former inhabitants, and _that's_ your biggest surprise?" Raven asked.

Beast Boy looked around, unsure how to answer, before venturing a guess. "Yes…?"

Starfire beamed. "We are most happy for both of you."

"Thank you. But I think exploring the particulars of any sort of relationship would be better saved for when I don't claim ownership over her immortal soul."

"Agreed," Robin said, back to business-mode. "On that point, what's our plan?"

Cyborg scratched the back of his head. "It's…gonna take me a while to get this thing up and runnin' again. Not to mention gettin' it to function without Raven's powers actin' like a beacon. It's doable," he promised. "But it's…gonna take some time."

"How much time?" Robin asked.

"Couple weeks?" Cyborg guessed. "Maybe a month? Includin' test runs."

"In the meantime, I can create paper talismans to help Jinx communicate," Raven said.

"Right here…" Jinx pointed out, scrunching her lips.

"Sorry," Raven apologized.

"Couldn't she just…blow stuff around, like she did before?" Beast Boy asked.

Raven shook her head. "That wasn't intentional. That was because her soul was in turmoil. Theoretically, if she had enough time, she might be able to develop enough control to interact with the physical world, but until then, paper talismans are easier. I'll make them in sets of three. Each one will have a bell, and we'll put a set in each room. One for 'yes,' one for, 'no,' and one just to let people know you're there. You'll be able to move them just by passing through them."

"Sounds good," Robin agreed. "Are there any other questions?"

Starfire raised her hand. "I wish to ask the location of friend Jinx."

"Right now?" Raven asked.

"Yes," Starfire affirmed.

Not quite sure of Starfire's point, Raven nonetheless indicated the spot where Jinx was standing.

Starfire floated over and, although her aim was a little off, did her best to put her arms around the disembodied Jinx. "We truly are relieved that you are safe, even if your present condition is less than desirable. We welcome you as our guest, and we shall do everything we can to assist you in your time of need."

Jinx looked to Raven, then to Starfire, not that it mattered. "Uh…thanks?"

"She says thank you," Raven relayed.

Smiling happily, Starfire retreated beside Robin.

"Okay," the boy wonder concluded. "I think that's everything. In light of your…condition…I'm exempting you from patrols and missions until this is resolved," he told Raven, then smirked. "Remember: you're living for two, now."

"Ha-ha," Raven deadpanned. Still, she couldn't disagree. Trying to do either of those things with another person's soul on a leash would've been cumbersome, risky, and dangerously irresponsible. If Robin hadn't volunteered the reprieve, she had intended to ask for it.

The others, save Cyborg, filed out while Beast Boy invited them to an honorary screening of _Ghost_.

Raven turned her attention to Jinx. "Now that my powers are back, it shouldn't be hard to extend your range to the rest of the island."

"Yes, mom," Jinx mocked with a snicker.

"Don't push it. I need a shower. You're welcome to roam until I get your talismans in place. Just…try not to spy on people." Raven walked out.

Jinx followed, hands clasped innocently behind her back. "Right. And when ya say people, naturally, ya mean…"

"I mean I can sense where you are at all times," Raven clarified.

Jinx pouted. "You're no fun. I'm dead! Can't I at least get some gossip out of it?"

After they left, Cyborg stood alone in his workshop and paused in his work. He shook his head with a sigh at seeing Raven talking to herself. " _That_ is gonna take some gettin' used to."

Later, Raven emerged from her bathroom clean, clothed, and refreshed in a billow of steam. She found Jinx sitting on the edge of her bed and sat beside her.

"How are you doing? Really," Raven asked after a moment.

Jinx smirked. "What happened to bein' an empath?"

"I could guess," Raven acknowledged. "But I would rather hear it from you."

Jinx shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I don't even know the _rules_."

"Can I help?" Raven offered.

Jinx considered, then sighed. "Like, okay. When ya went to get your shower, I'm standin' here, and I'm about to sit down on your bed, and then I think, 'Does that work? Can I sit on it?' And then in the middle of tryin' to figure _that_ out, I realize I'm standin' on the floor. People go through me, but I can stand on the floor. So can I sit on the bed? You're in there gettin' a shower when all _I_ want is the world's longest bubble bath, and here I am havin' a friggin' existential _crisis_ over whether I can sit on the bed!"

Raven mulled over the story, letting Jinx decompress from having told it.

"Finally I just said, 'Screw it,' and sat down," Jinx finished.

"It's…complicated," Raven said.

"I'm gettin' the sense that a lotta stuff is, when it comes to you," Jinx said.

Raven gave a slow nod. "It is. And so is this. Your ability to physically interact with the world, right now, is… You can walk on the floor because you know you can. You don't believe it. You expect it. The bed is the same. You could pass through it if you wanted, or you could sit on it like you are, depending on what you expect when you interact with it. It's like a contest, and inanimate objects automatically forfeit because they have no will, no expectation. Other people can't see you, never know exactly where you are, and so aren't capable of the level of certainty necessary in their expectation to make interacting with you possible. Whether they want to or not, it comes down to a contest of wills. Both sides need to be on the same page for it to work, and they can't be, so it won't."

"Great," Jinx flopped back onto the bed. "So that whole… _your will is my will_ , thing…is that why I'm not still freakin' out?"

"Maybe," Raven said. "It's…impossible to tell, really."

"So…what about you and me?" Jinx asked. "I mean, I told ya what I think. What do you think?"

"I don't know," Raven admitted.

"Okay, new question," Jinx decided. "Whaddaya _want_? Like, if I _wasn't_ under I-own-your-soul-mind-control."

Raven allowed herself some time to construct her response. Normally, she would have waived off the issue by repeating her answer to Jinx's previous question. But considering everything, she felt Jinx deserved something more substantial. In the end, she decided on stream-of-consciousness honesty. "I think that, while I allowed my curiosity too much leeway in an inappropriate situation, the fact that I harbored curiosity at all, much less enough of it for it to go that overboard, makes exploring those feelings further worthwhile. That is, assuming you still feel the same when you get your body back."

"I will." Jinx wasted no time in her response and made no attempt to conceal her enthusiasm at the prospect.

Raven failed to hold back a smile. "But, until then, I would be uncomfortable going…probably even as far as we have."

Jinx shrewdly picked apart Raven's precise meaning. "So, what're we talkin', here? Separate beds? Cuddles but no kisses? Kisses but no makin' out?"

Raven contained a chuckle. "Probably the second one. Closeness is fine, especially since you'll still feel colder the farther away you are."

"I can deal with that. Not an _A_ , but not a _C_. Solid _B+_ ," Jinx said with a nod. Her jovial attitude slipped some, allowing a bit of worry to get through. "So, uh…about you fixin' this…on a scale of one to ten…?"

"I'll fix it," Raven said in her most reassuring tone—whether she believed it herself or not.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I want to take a moment to thank everyone who's commented: Monst3erc4t, TacoKing23, TimeMachine, Golem XIV, Crzyratlady, deathgundam006, Allosaurus, pandahero2p, and of course, the illustrious Guest. You all have no idea how close I've come to dropping this or putting it on a backburner for some other idea I can actually submit to a magazine or an agency. But then I get a comment, and it makes me smile, and I want to keep writing this until it's done again. So, thank you. To everyone who favorites and follows, and especially to everyone who leaves a comment. I'm glad you find my style enjoyable or interesting and the story engaging enough to keep reading. And to anyone curious: yes, the reveal with Jinx was intentional since I started the story. Creating breadcrumbs that make sense in hindsight but that don't telegraph it beforehand is harder than I thought it might be. I apologize for this being a day late. The holiday threw me off schedule. If it makes anyone feel better, it's almost twice as long.

Thank you for reading! As always, comments are what fuel the desire to keep writing these, since nobody gets paid for them.

 _Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately._

Chapter 6

Ghost

Before dinner on the day of their homecoming, Raven had talismans in place in each of the tower's many rooms and hallways. With the unexpected help of the rest of the Titans, crafting them all had taken much less time than she had anticipated. The whole event had turned into a kind of arts and crafts project for everyone, much to the empath's surprise, serving as both a group activity and a welcome bonding experience: Cyborg teasing Beast Boy good-naturedly over his craftsmanship while Starfire decorated her contributions with colorful hearts and stars and Robin focused on perfection and practicality, cranking out more than the rest.

Unable to do much, Jinx had at least managed to settle back into her usual demeanor, occupying her time equally between stepping around the room to broadcast her boredom and amusing herself by passing her various limbs through the others.

Overall, the feelings incubating among them did a lot to help Raven decompress after their experience. Uncertainty was still there, of course, simmering on a low heat below the surface inside everyone present, but she supposed she really couldn't have expected much else. More to the point, she counted herself thankful that the group seemed to have taken Jinx's condition in stride, or at least was making the effort to appear that they were. To anyone who _wasn't_ an empath, the effort would have been a successful one.

Jinx, too, seemed helped a great deal by the warmth and casualness of the scene. Still, Raven could feel it in her, the honest, wide-eyed, childlike fear of one suddenly faced with the imminent implications of mortality. Raven had felt it often: near every hospital, every retirement home, some homeless shelters and other such places that lay in wait at the ends of certain roads people chose to take in their lives.

Contrary to what people liked to say sometimes, or what fiction might have had people believe, no one was ever ready to die. Convinced themselves of it, perhaps. But in the moment? Never. Unless the person passing was unconscious, even if the minutes leading up to it were calm and smiling and peaceful, in that last, sometimes imperceptible moment, it always ended on the same frightened note.

It was the unknown, after all. Fear was natural. To deny it she considered, at best, naïve. At worst, petulant. In the end, all those aware of their passing were afraid. All sought comfort, to be held, a higher or more powerful, knowledgeable, even maternal something to soothe and assure them in the face of the ultimate unknown.

Something to hold on to, to let them know it would be okay.

Jinx had come close, closer than most people ever would, hadn't merely found out that she _was_ dying but that she _had_ died. For all practical purposes, anyway. As much as she trusted Raven—and Raven could feel that she did—there would always be doubt. Somewhere tucked and hidden, secreted away and shunned by conscious thought, maybe. But there would always be doubt.

And in Jinx's case, that doubt culminated in a black hole in the galaxy of her mind: dark, consuming, and horrifying, a single point of existential dread so utterly inescapable that it never be engaged or acknowledged, lest it swallow her whole.

So, she didn't. Didn't think about it, didn't _allow_ herself to dwell on it. She played. She sighed and grunted her boredom. She put her arm through Beast Boy's head and pretended her hand was a little mouth on the other side, mimicking his speech like a flailing Muppet and giggling all the while.

Comfort would come later, when Jinx sought it. Until then, Raven would not offer, would not allow herself to _consider_ offering, much less allow herself to want it. For the next month, she would want, literally, for nothing, as best she could. To want anything was to influence Jinx's will with hers, and the very idea of it, of using someone in that way, sickened her. The fact that, in her rashness, she might have already _done_ it actually made her ill to think about it.

Just that easily, with one slip, one lapse in judgement, one mistake, she had played puppet master with someone's soul to sate her own curiosity. No matter how she justified it or rationalized it away, for one night, just for a few minutes, she had risked someone else's afterlife and embraced more of her heritage than even Doctor Light had ever seen.

Whatever happened, whatever Jinx decided and whatever did or didn't develop between them afterward, as long as she lived, she would never forgive herself for that. Or, at the very least, certainly she would never forget.

Once all the talismans were finished and set in place, the group reconvened in the common room while Cyborg and Beast Boy set about preparing dinner. Robin and Starfire smiled softly and talked to each other on one end of the couch, probably their first truly relaxed moment since Raven had disappeared, while Raven herself sat with a book on the other end.

Jinx wandered idly over to the window, staring at it. A thought seemed to occur, and she held an arm out idly, examining her clothes. "So…"

"I wouldn't," Raven told her.

Robin and Starfire looked over briefly, but Raven's apparent non-sequiturs had become more or less accepted.

"I didn't even ask!" Jinx defended.

Raven flipped a page. "You exist as a representation of your self-image. Your clothes are a part of that. If you take them off, they could disappear."

"Friend Jinx would like to…remove her clothing?" Starfire asked.

"That's…what it sounds like," Robin replied.

"Please. That is…unusual on this planet, yes?"

Robin raised an eyebrow at the implication of Starfire's question.

"For most people," Raven quipped.

Jinx swaggered closer, hands clasped behind her back and a Cheshire grin across her lips. "Or, maybe, it's not _my_ will that wants me to take them off…"

The microwave in the kitchen short-circuited with a spark and a puff of smoke.

All eyes turned to Raven, who offered no outward indication.

"One-sided conversations, am I right?" Beast Boy chimed in from the peanut gallery.

"Soup's on!" Cyborg sang out.

Everyone rose from the couch and headed over to eat.

Jinx followed, still smiling. "Just think! I can't touch or interact or even _talk_ to anybody or anything else! I get to play with you for a whole _month_!"

"Joy," Raven deadpanned.

"Hey, at least I'll get somethin' out of it. Who knew bein' a ghost was so _boring_? No wonder they're always moanin'…"

"Not a ghost," Raven corrected her. "Disembodied soul."

Jinx rolled her eyes. "Big whoop."

"Ghosts are residual psychic projections attached to places, people, or objects. You're a disembodied soul."

"Dude," Beast Boy said honestly. "There's no such thing as ghosts?"

Raven gave him an unimpressed look.

"We're still on for the movie later, though. Right?" he asked.

With a roll of her eyes, Raven started into a bowl of the stew Cyborg had prepared for everyone but Beast Boy, who had made himself something more suited to his tastes.

Jinx stretched her hand high in the background, straining comically and holding one arm up with the other. "Oh! Teacher! Teacher!"

Raven paused from her food and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Jinx blinked endearingly. "Do I eat?"

"No," Raven replied.

"So why am I thirsty?" Jinx asked.

"It's psychological."

Jinx sighed, leaning quietly against the countertop while the others ate. Just like Raven had said, the moment she stopped thinking about being thirsty, she no longer was. In the other dimension, she really _had_ been thirsty. And hungry. She knew that much hadn't just been in her head. But then, Raven had already said that her father had changed the rules there, given souls form or whatever. If the things that had chased them at the end were any indication, though, they still couldn't really _die_.

Her expression saddened somewhat as she recalled all the things she had experienced in that dimension: hunger, thirst, exhaustion, heat and coldness. Try as she might, she could think of no good reasons to allow beings that couldn't die to feel those things. But she could think of plenty of bad reasons.

"What about sleeping?" Jinx asked.

Raven glanced over, although Jinx apparently hadn't seen, taken by the sudden shift in her mood and the subsequent lack of her usual abbreviated pronunciation. "I don't see why not. You won't _actually_ be tired, but you can will yourself to be, like being thirsty. In theory, you could probably sleep whenever you wanted."

Jinx's emotional state sank like a rock in water, and Raven quickly reexamined her words to find what she might've said wrong.

"So if I wanted to just…go to sleep…"

Raven put down her spoon and turned to face Jinx with her full attention. "If you want to do that, I won't stop you. You can go to sleep right now, and the next time you wake up, you'll be back in your body."

Jinx's smile peaked out again. "And miss out on a whole month of findin' out how to push your buttons?"

With a roll of her eyes, Raven resumed eating.

Cyborg shook his head. "Not gonna lie. It's a pretty messed up situation." He gave a look at where Raven's posture had indicated Jinx to have been. "But don't worry. Hang tight, and we'll get ya fixed up. Who knows? Might not even take that long."

"And until then, I get to tell people I live in a haunted house," Beast Boy added.

"People," Raven said.

Beast Boy took offense. "I have friends! Besides…you guys." He counted on his fingers. "The guy at the video store, the one other guy I see buying tofu sometimes, this weird guy who talks about lizard people in the government and feeds ducks at the park…"

Utensils held in place, everyone gave the green teen a questioning look.

He became sheepish. "What? I…like being fed."

"And petted," Starfire added.

Beast Boy blushed a darker green, unable to deny it. "Yeah…"

Jinx giggled. "He's cute. Can I keep him?"

"You did not just say that," Raven replied.

"Say what?" Beast Boy asked, mostly out of reflex.

Raven hesitated.

Jinx grinned. "Yeah, Raven. Say what?"

"Nothing," Raven said.

With a shrug, Beast Boy went back to his meal.

" _Chicken_ ," Jinx taunted her.

"Beef, actually," Raven said simply, taking another spoonful.

"This is gonna be fun," Jinx decided. "Can ya wait? I can't wait."

After they had all finished dinner, Beast Boy led the charge back to the couch for the movie. He sat next to Cyborg, while Robin and Starfire took the middle, his arm over her shoulders and her just as pleased to have it there. Raven took note of the very prominent open spot between them and herself.

"We…just sort of assumed…" Robin hedged, noticing that Raven had noticed the empty space.

Jinx wasted no time in happily filling it. "They're so nice," she said to Raven. "Such good friends."

"Thanks," Raven said, legitimately thankful but no less uncomfortable with the public acknowledgment.

The movie played. Cyborg and Beast Boy riffed in amateur Mystery Science Theater 3000 tradition. Robin and Starfire got more comfortable, and Jinx did the same: nestled right up against Raven's side, sighing contentedly.

At one point, in response to something in the film, Jinx leaned up and whispered into the empath's ear.

A drinking glass cracked on the counter.

"Gonna start a tab for y'all," Cyborg commented, eyes still on the movie.

"You…do realize I can _literally_ put you out in the cold. Right?" Raven asked.

Jinx batted her eyes in a, 'Who? Me?' response. "But my will is your will," she feigned innocence.

"I'm doing everything I can do rein in _my_ will," Raven countered. "This is all you."

"But…it's impossible to tell—or so I'm told," Jinx said with a sly grin.

With a sigh, Raven dropped the subject.

As the movie reached its third act, Cyborg and Beast Boy's banter had mostly tapered out. Robin had sunken deeper into the couch, his legs stretched out front with Starfire's head resting between his chest and shoulder.

Raven, however, had found herself only half paying attention to the film on display. Instead, her attention became drawn to a curious, latent tension that seemed to have sprung up after her inadvertent cracking of the glass on the counter.

It was minute. Hardly worth noticing, really. But she _had_ noticed it, perhaps because of how unwelcomed a change it had been to the easy peacefulness whose place it had taken, or at least intruded upon.

She thought back, considering the short interaction. Jinx's state hadn't changed. Everyone else's had. Then, she wondered: had she done that?

True, she had so seldom expressed affection at all around the others—let alone the propensity for romantic feelings—that they had no measure, no standard by which to judge her interactions with Jinx. Jinx herself, of course, suffered no such problem. Their relationship, whatever it really was, had developed with exactly the kind of dry snark with which she had jokingly threatened to put Jinx out in the cold.

An obvious joke, certainly. They had all recognized it as such. But could it also have caused their tension, like someone not quite sure whether it really _had_ been all in fun or if he had found himself caught awkwardly in the middle of a backhanded spat?

An interesting supposition and, if true, a nuance to relationships that she hadn't before considered: that actions between her and Jinx, while innocent to the two of them, might easily put others less familiar with their norms in awkward or uncertain, tense situations, wholly inadvertently.

Was it something Robin and Starfire dealt with?

Had Raven been a victim of it herself at any point, perhaps equally clueless to it at the time?

Intrigued, she decided to test her theory.

Slowly at first, to give Jinx time to react accordingly, she lay down in a lounging position with her head propped up a bit by the arm of the couch. Pleased as a peach, and as on-cue as if she had memorized the script, Jinx lay down in front of her. Raven's arm rested overtop of her—to everyone else, very visibly resting midair.

The theory held true as the tension between the others quickly evaporated, without any of them so much as glancing over. It was, however, shortly replaced by surprise, largely pleasant, at the uncharacteristically affectionate display.

Truthfully, Raven _herself_ found it uncomfortable, unfamiliar. Still, filing away her findings, she returned to the movie, satisfied both that the nagging tension was gone and that she had nudged the edge of her comfort zone.

Then, it got nudged again.

She felt pressure on her arm and saw that Jinx had taken it, perhaps even absentmindedly, holding it like a stuffed toy while she watched the movie.

Luckily, nothing broke.

When the movie ended, the hour had grown late. The group said goodnight, each of them going their separate ways until the following morning. Jinx followed Raven to her room, where the empath opted for a brief meditation before bed.

"What am I supposed to do?" Jinx half complained, as Raven took up her hovering lotus position.

"You could meditate," Raven offered.

Shrugging off the suggestion with a roll of her eyes, Jinx left Raven to her ritual and decided to roam on her own. She scrunched her lips in annoyance, staring at the warning talisman in the hallway as it wafted and jingled in some otherworldly breeze.

They all did that. Of the set of talismans strewn about the tower, the ones meant to indicate her presence, while blocked by solid walls, all reacted as soon as she entered their range and _continued_ to float as long as she stayed nearby—intentional, she was sure, to put the others at ease and help curb any… _voyeuristic_ tendencies of her own.

Kinda sucked some of the fun out of invisibility, really.

She wandered back downstairs to the common room, warning talismans jingling to announce her presence each time she entered a new area. The temperature dropped the farther away she got, but not unbearably so. With no particular place in mind, she eventually found herself in Cyborg's garage, the metal man himself pouring on the midnight oil as he worked on his machine. The cranking of whatever he was doing had apparently masked the jingling of her warning bell. She stood in the doorway, unknown to the room's occupant, watching him work.

It wasn't the first time she'd watched him.

Years before, she had watched Stone at the academy. Her crush hadn't been any big secret; she hadn't really tried to hide it. Now, though, it raised a few questions.

It hadn't been the same with Kid Flash. Kid had been an emotional thing, missing any kind of physical attraction. That had been the whole problem. But Stone, that had been exactly the opposite. His physique, his prowess, his performance—all totally physical.

That had been real. Hadn't it?

It must have been. As she watched him, even with the illusory appearance gone, part of her still felt it.

So…what did _that_ mean?

That she was shallow. Or at least, that her libido was. That was probably normal, though. Like, a lot of people probably worked that way, or could. The bigger question was how _she_ worked that way at all—with him, specifically.

Mammoth performed much the same way, boasted the same kind of physique, could even demonstrate the same prowess, now and then. But she hadn't ever felt anything at all for him.

So…if it wasn't muscle guys, or big guys, or genuine guys, what was her type, exactly? For guys.

She must've had one, somewhere.

What had set Stone apart, back then?

She raised her brow at the thought and the answer she had to admit: nothing, really. Super strength, nice body, his personality, none of them particularly uncommon in the circles they occupied.

An exception, she supposed. Usually, she liked girls—strong types, not girly types. But there could be exceptions. Right?

And then, the thought: did there have to be a _rule_?

That one gave her pause.

Some girls she liked. Some girls she didn't. Most guys she didn't. Maybe some she did. Did it have to be any more complicated?

She felt a tinge of annoyance, maybe even anger: why did she feel like she had to _justify_ herself? And to whom, anyway?

Somewhere in the midst of her debate, Cyborg's work had quieted down enough for him to notice the bell.

"Hey," he said, still working on some kind of calculation, since he couldn't tell where exactly she was anyway. "Sorry. Didn't notice ya come in."

For a split second, Jinx opened her mouth to reply; then she deflated when she remembered it wouldn't matter.

"Glad ya dropped by, actually. Been meanin' to have a talk," he said. "I know you're in a weird place right now, so I won't lay it down too hard. But me and Raven, we been through a lot. All of us have. And Raven, she's like a little sister to me. Know where I'm goin' with this?"

Realizing that she could, in fact, contribute to this part of the conversation, Jinx passed her hand through the _yes_ talisman, which jingled in response.

"Good," Cyborg said, setting his work aside to focus on his thoughts for a moment. "Truth be told, I think this is good for her. It's been nice, seein' her come outta her shell these last few years. I just don't wanna see her get hurt. She's powerful, probably more than any of us, and she's strong. A survivor. Ain't nobody arguin' that. But she's new at this. Vulnerable. Inexperienced. Just…treat her right. That's all I'm sayin'."

The _yes_ bell jingled.

"All right. I'm gonna get back to work." He put on a smile. "Pretty special somebody countin' on me figurin' this out—couple of somebodies."

Jinx took a step back, out of the room, and the warning talisman fell idle as Cyborg returned to work.

After a minute or so, Jinx left, still mulling over the metal man's words. Stuck in the haze of her thoughts, she found herself outside another room before she realized it, the door open and Beast Boy inside amid a hurricane of clothes and other debris. Lying on his bed, he held his communicator up in front of his face, staring at it. Instinctively, Jinx took a step forward to get a better look.

The warning talisman jingled.

Beast Boy jumped, startled, and closed his communicator.

He looked around uncertainly. "Um…hello?"

Displeased at her inability to snoop, Jinx nonetheless reached up and waggled the warning bell a little more.

"Hey…" Beast Boy said. "I, um… Come in…? I was just—" He seemed to fumble for an excuse, but then sighed instead. Taking out his communicator again, he opened it. "This is Terra," he said.

Invited, Jinx moved to look at the picture of the young woman's face displayed on the communicator.

"We were…kind of a thing, for a while," Beast Boy said. "But she, uh… She's not…with us, anymore."

Heart thoroughly wrenched by the funnyman's uncharacteristic sullenness, she sat alongside the bed. Joining Beast Boy in staring at the bright, smiling image, she found her mind occupied not as much on the woman herself as on how exactly she had come to _not be with them, anymore_. As she did, it became very apparent that she was not the only ghost in the room.

"Hey. Can I, uh…ask you something?" Beast Boy inquired, closing his communicator once again.

Standing up, Jinx moved back to the talismans and jingled _yes_.

Beast Boy looked away uncomfortably. "You and Raven. It isn't, like…a fling, or something. Right? Like, I didn't really get all the soul-y, will-y stuff before, so maybe this is stupid to ask, but…you're not just messing with her. Right?"

Suddenly put on the spot, Jinx did the best she could and answered to the best of her ability by jingling the _no_ bell.

"Cool," Beast Boy said. "Cuz, I mean…I'm the funny guy, and even I know how much it hurts to think you're getting close to somebody, and then… And Raven, she doesn't even really _do_ relationships, y'know? So if she's giving it a shot, then she must really feel something." He smiled softly, looking down. "I'm glad." He chuckled. "Just be careful, okay? She can get some serious distance when she's mad. Think I almost made it to the other side of the bay, one time."

Unable to help herself, Jinx smiled too. She jingled the _yes_ bell.

Beast Boy gave a slow nod, one of finality. "Cool. Well, I don't mean to be rude, but…I think I'm gonna go to bed. It was nice talking to you."

The _yes_ bell jingled.

Jinx stepped back, and Beast Boy watched the warning talisman fall lifelessly. Then, he closed his door.

Curious now, Jinx drew upon what memories of the tower she could muster and made her way to Starfire's room. Her door, however, was closed. Jinx passed her head through to peek and found the Tamaranean on her bed, brushing her hair.

Starfire's face lit at the jingling of the warning bell. "Friend!" She whirled around, then lost some enthusiasm. "You…are here, yes? It was not merely the wind?"

Passing wholly into the room, Jinx jingled the _yes_ bell.

Starfire swooped over, considering afterward. "I…do not know where you are. Still, we may talk! I have so many questions concerning how you and friend Raven came to—" She considered again. "And…you cannot answer." Gradually, her feet sank down to the ground. "But…even so! _I_ may talk, and you may respond where you are able!"

The _yes_ bell jingled.

"Glorious!" Starfire proclaimed, spinning once in place. "Oh, truly. When you are returned to your body, I will have many questions. Are you well?"

Jinx kind of…shrugged to herself, a little bit. She jingled the _yes_ bell.

"Most welcomed news," Starfire said, returning to sit alongside her bed; she patted a spot nearby, offering it to her guest. "Oh," she realized. "I suppose you must remain near the bells. Yes?"

The _yes_ bell jingled.

"My apologies. It is…quite strange, entertaining a guest who I cannot see. I imagine it is difficult for you, as well."

The _yes_ bell jingled.

"Do not worry. I am sure friend Cyborg will do all he can to ready his machine as quickly as possible."

Jinx smiled in agreement; she knew he would. Probably he didn't know how _not_ to.

She paused. Was that it? What set him apart. Caring about people? Stone hadn't, but she supposed that could've just been a crush, some stupid adolescent thing. But whatever she still felt, she did still feel something. And Cyborg sure cared. So had Kid Flash.

Maybe.

"I said that I will have many questions when you are returned to your body," Starfire continued. "That is true. But for now, I will begin with this one: you find Raven attractive. Yes?"

Interest piqued, Jinx jingled the _yes_ bell.

Starfire giggled. "That is good. You have told her this?"

Jinx thought back. Then, after a few seconds, she jingled the _no_ bell, somewhat disheartened. Everything had happened so naturally, so spontaneously, and then so quickly after that, she really hadn't ever actually _said_ that. Implied it, maybe, but never said it.

"I see," Starfire said. "Friend Raven has indicated that you shared an intimate experience. In light of that, I understand if this may seem unnecessary, but I wish to ask something of you."

The _yes_ bell jingled.

Starfire's smile shrank to one gentle and small. "My people are taught to embrace ourselves: our bodies, our feelings, to be proud of who we are. I have tried for many years to help Raven to do the same, but she is…humble…and has difficulty accepting compliments of any kind, especially those regarding her appearance." She looked up toward the talismans where she imagined Jinx was standing. "Please, tell Raven that she is beautiful. From us, it would not matter. I have tried. But she deserves to hear it from someone she will believe, in a moment when she will believe it."

The _yes_ bell jingled again, and Starfire smiled a little more.

"Thank you," she said. "Since Robin confessed his feelings for me, he and I have been most happy. I wish such happiness for all my friends, including for you and Raven. It is…different, when he compliments me out there, and when he compliments me in here, where only he and I can hear. Truthful. Sincere. A warm, wondrous feeling. Sadly, we cannot give that to her—but perhaps you can."

The _yes_ bell jingled.

"Again, I thank you," Starfire said. "Thank you also for speaking with me." She giggled again. "Even if it is not by choice, you are a most excellent listener. I wish you a good night, and I shall greet you in the morning."

Jinx jingled the _yes_ bell one more time before taking her leave.

One left to complete the set, she made for the boy wonder himself. She found his door open, Robin himself typing away at a computer terminal inside.

"Glad you're here. We need to talk," he said.

At first, used to the setup by this point, Jinx hadn't thought anything of the acknowledgment. Only after, however, did she notice that she hadn't yet entered the room—or set off the warning talisman. Her brow furrowed questioningly.

Robin stopped in his work and swiveled in his chair to face the door, fingers folded and one eyebrow raised. "Do you really wanna know?"

Grumbling off Robin's sometimes uncanny resemblance to his former mentor, Jinx merely stepped inside and swatted the _no_ bell.

He sported a brief smirk, then returned to business. Taking another wheeled chair that seemed to have no other earthly purpose in the room, he pushed it over toward the talismans. "Have a seat."

Jinx complied.

"Am I the first person you've talked to?"

The _no_ bell.

"Am I the last?"

The _yes_ bell.

"Okay. So I can assume you've got a pretty good idea of how we all feel."

The _yes_ bell.

"Good. Now, let me make this clear, because you and I are going to have a different conversation: nothing I'm going to say in any way contradicts anything else you've heard. We care about Raven. We care about you. We're supportive—myself included. And while I can't and won't speak for anyone else, I respect what you've done in turning your life around and would bet money I'm not the only one. All that said, here's something you probably haven't heard yet tonight: Raven is dangerous."

Jinx straightened up some, caught somewhere between surprised and, almost, offended.

"That's not an insult. Ask her, and she'll tell you herself. You know there's magic involved. But how much do you actually know about how Raven's powers work?"

Robin waited, and so did Jinx, unsure of how to respond to something that didn't allow for a simple _yes_ or _no_. Eventually, she settled on the best she could do and jingled the _no_ bell.

Robin picked right back up again, as though he had anticipated she would stumble over the response and had been ready for it. "Raven's powers are driven by her emotions, but it's more complicated than that."

Jinx rolled her eyes at the word that seemed to follow Raven like an aura: _complicated_.

"People like Starfire have abilities that are _connected_ to their emotions. If she wants strength, she feels one thing. If she wants starbolts, she feels something else. Flight, something else. Each ability tied to a different emotion. Raven's powers are _driven_ by hers. Think. Has there ever been a time when she asked you to do something, or to stop doing it, that didn't quite seem to make sense?"

Raven's face appeared in Jinx's memory, looking up at her from below, flushed and saying they needed to stop.

"Courage, fear, anger, hate—they all draw on the same power and only serve to control how much of it is released. For Raven, being too happy is just as dangerous as being consumed by rage. While one might be more likely than the other, they both have the same explosive potential."

Jinx's stomach tightened at the look Robin gave then, his eyes narrow slits beneath the mask, his mouth a hard line and his jaw set, deadly serious.

"You know who I am. You know who I worked with, and you know who he works with. Know this: Raven may very well be the most powerful being I have ever met, and so as good as she is and as hard as she works, there will _always_ be a danger there. She knows that. We know that. You need to know it, too."

Jinx relaxed some when Robin's body language softened.

"Since she beat back her father, she's been making an effort to be more in tune with her emotions, but it's a process: learning not just _how_ to feel but how to feel safely, familiarizing herself with each emotion, its levels of intensity, and the amounts of power each of those brings to the table. But she's trying. And if what she says happened really did happen—and I have no reason to believe it didn't—then she's willing to try with _you_."

Her heart fluttered a bit.

"That's both a compliment and an endorsement—pretty huge ones, coming from Raven. But for you, it's also a responsibility. Raven doesn't do things on a whim. She commits. She'll work with you, do her best to extend her comfort zone as she acclimates to new feelings. But you can't push her," Robin said very clearly. "Help her. Guide her. Ask her. But _don't_ …push her. Do you understand?"

Jinx jingled the _yes_ bell.

Robin seemed to soften even more. "Sorry to be so serious. But it is a serious issue. She's come a long way, and I think this is a good step, provided you don't push her into something she isn't ready for. For what it's worth, I don't think you will. Raven trusts you, so I trust her with you. But we had to have this conversation."

The _yes_ bell.

"I'm glad you agree. Also, don't forget: you aren't alone. We're all behind you. Now, since I have you, there's something else I'd like to discuss. When you get your body back, I assume you'll want to be nearby. So if you don't want to find a place in the city, let me know. We've got plenty of spare rooms."

The _yes_ bell again.

"Well, from what I understand, your feelings may change once you're back in one piece. If you're still interested then, we'll get you set up. You've got experience working with a team already, experience in leadership—it shouldn't be a problem. So. Is there anything you need?"

The _no_ bell.

"All right, then. In that case, I'm glad we talked, but I should get back to work. Between dinner, the movie, and getting those talismans up, I haven't had a chance to file a report today. Have a good night. I'll see you tomorrow."

As Robin did just that, Jinx rose from her seat and vacated the room. Her head swimming in all the talks she'd had that night, Jinx headed to the common room for some air, or space, or…something.

She walked up to the window and just stood there, mulling over it all. She just…couldn't process it. Not really.

Her whole life, everyone she'd met, everyone she'd worked with, everyone she'd ever known or lived with or looked up to—nobody had cared that much. And it hadn't been _forced_. Like, not at all. They hadn't said all that because they felt like they had to, out of some sense of obligation or duty or requirement or because anybody expected them to, no. They'd just _said_ it. Because they'd wanted to.

Because they cared.

She understood then, more deeply and perfectly than she ever had before, the difference between heroes and villains: heroes cared.

No. Good people did.

That kind of support…

That kind of connection…

Suddenly it wasn't such a mystery anymore, how Raven had managed to overcome her heritage. With people like that behind her, pulling for her, cheering her on, picking her up, how could she fail?

Surreal.

Absolutely surreal.

One of them had lost his body, struggled with his _humanity_. One had lost someone. One had lost his parents, and one was living on an alien planet. Every motivation, every justification to be selfish and self-centered that anyone could've ever asked for, every excuse in the book to hold a non-stop pity party, shut people out, and not give a damn about a world that didn't seem to give one about them.

And none of it mattered.

All of it, boxed up and tossed out to be there for her. To make sure _she_ was okay.

Just…surreal.

For a few minutes of self-indulgent whimsy, Jinx found herself put in Raven's place, in her life with her friends, imagining what it might've meant, how it might've been different.

Then it occurred to her: all that concern, it hadn't _just_ been for Raven.

They cared about her, too. Maybe not as much, but a little. Enough to say so. A start.

That connection, that support, as if a door had swung open in her mind, she considered for the first time—really believed—she could have it, too.

She winced at the thought.

She could've had it before. Maybe. If she'd let them, Kid Flash and the others. But she hadn't…gotten the same _vibe_ from them, hadn't connected.

She hadn't tried.

Probably she still wouldn't have tried, had her situation not forced her to shut up and listen. Or maybe being invisible had made it easier for them to open up, or her thing with Raven, or with Cyborg, or both. Or just her history, with all of them. More than she'd had with Kid Flash or any of his circle, she had history with the Titans. This group.

Maybe.

Lots of maybes.

Outside, lots of stars.

With a sigh, she put her thoughts aside.

Not long after, she left the common room, headed back upstairs.

On her way, she passed by Starfire's room again and stopped reflexively at a very particular sound.

Just like that, her depth dried up and her Cheshire grin returned, and she skulked closer to the door and the intimate sounds beyond. With a quick, side-to-side glance as though anyone could see her anyway, she prepared to pass through the door—not far enough to set off the warning talisman, hopefully, but enough to get an eyeful.

And promptly found herself several feet in the air above Raven's bed.

She fell to the mattress with a _flumf_ and blinked twice, then focused her attention irately on the empath still hovering nearby. "Ah, _c'mon_!"

Raven peeked one eye open. "Hm?"

"Oh, don't gimme that," Jinx accused, scrambling in a huff to the edge of the bed. "Ya couldn't give me one? Just one?"

"Sorry," Raven said.

"No you're not," Jinx groused.

"No, I'm not," Raven admitted. "Unless you count a month of babysitting Casper the Pervy Ghost."

Jinx smirked. "Disembodied soul."

"Whatever."

"I'm told there's a difference," Jinx said.

Raven touched down and stretched lightly. A black spark arc in the air nearby, although thankfully didn't break anything, when Jinx caught her by surprise and held her from behind. Blindsided, Raven didn't react at all, simply let it happen.

Then, Jinx let go and sat back down. "They really care about you," she said, all humor aside and suddenly sounding rather small.

Raven offered a fledgling smile. "They're my family."

Without saying anything more, Jinx lay down on the bed. Raven followed, and they took their usual position with her facing up and Jinx close by. This time, however, Jinx took Raven's wrist and rolled over, pulling the empath along into a spooning position.

Raven felt Jinx's snarky demeanor evaporate and leave behind the sensation of isolation, which Raven had expected, but, more than that, of loneliness, which she somewhat hadn't. Not…separated loneliness, as _might_ have been expected of one cut off from the world the way that Jinx was, but of…something else. Something more individualized, more personal.

So, unfamiliar with the act itself, but familiar enough with the nature and the intent of it, Raven allowed herself to be maneuvered into position, if that was what Jinx wanted.

She slid one arm underneath Jinx's pillow to keep it out of the way, while Jinx held the other draped over her body and wriggled closer.

"Tighter," Jinx said quietly, and Raven obliged by tightening her hold.

The act seemed to ease Jinx's mind, at least somewhat, and although Raven could only assume whatever had come over her had done so because of something she had realized or experience during her nighttime travels, she did not question it. Perhaps there would come a time for questions, but not now.

For now, later had come. As Raven had suspected, Jinx was seeking comfort, and she would freely give it.

And so, they slept.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Sorry again for how long this one took. If you missed my last update: first I was sick, and then I started picking up 13-16 hour shifts for a while. If I manage to get another chapter done this weekend, I'll post it for Monday. If not, I'll get back on track the following Monday. Thanks so much for the reviews! I've got a few other projects I'm kind of itching to start, but I'll be honest and say that the reviews go a long way toward finishing this one first.

Thank you for reading! As always, comments are what fuel the desire to keep writing these, since nobody gets paid for them.

 _Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately._

Chapter 7

Unto the Breach

Raven loosed a humid sigh as Jinx worked her way from her lips to one side of her jaw and then down to her neck, biting down just the way she had before—although perhaps a bit harder this time, more impassioned, more sure. The same guttural groan worked its way up from somewhere deep inside the empath, but this time, rather than shy away, she gave herself fully to the urge that grew in scope and urgency with their building momentum.

One hand beside her head, pinned down at the wrist by her pink-haired partner, the other came to rest on the back of Jinx's head, holding her where she was, pulling her down, encouraging her to bite harder. She did, and Raven seethed her approval. As Jinx allowed herself to be more forceful, Raven let her hand feel its way down her neck, her side, her back to below her waist and squeezed without any thought at all, acting wholly on impulse as she succumbed to that urge and cut its leash completely.

Raven threw them over, putting herself on top and wasting no time in repaying Jinx's attentions. She kissed, reveling in the sensation of Jinx's hands freely exploring her form, feeling and touching, grabbing and groping wherever she pleased. The urge pulsed, as hard as it ever had, Raven's vision briefly fuzzy and unfocused even though her eyes remained closed. One arm slid up behind Jinx's head, taking a handful of hair roughly and drawing her head back with a short cry.

A moan accompanied Raven's mouth finding her neck in reciprocation, her body shivering and twisting beneath the empath as Raven latched on and bit down. The act, something about it—the suction, the taste of the flesh, the physical, dominant satisfaction the harder down she clamped her jaws—stoked a warmth in Raven's chest that quickly ignited into a fire that had her breathing heavily through her nose and losing herself in the cocktail of emotions swirling and reacting between them.

Jinx groaned with a pained grimace, squirming some in an attempt to loosen Raven's grip, who tightened her hold on the girl's hair in response.

Without a thought and before Jinx could struggle further, Raven asserted her ownership of the soul in question and banished the unwelcomed emotion that had so intruded on her snowballing passion: no more hurting. Pain, pleasure, both the same—and she bit harder, rolling them back again, dragging Jinx on top and locking her arms over her shoulders to hold her there.

Jinx's expression changed, eyes alternating between worry and blurry ecstasy, at once keenly aware that something was wrong and so bombarded by impossible sensations at the utter and instantaneous conversion. Her mouth hung open, her brow knit and tense, as she fell into an unthinking haze, unable and unwilling to resist.

As her partner spiraled into a pleasurable abyss, Raven drank in the emotional waves that rolled off and into her, spurring her on. From moans to groans to growls, she ramped up in intensity, _raking_ her nails down Jinx's back with zero restraint and every modicum of force her most primal urges desired.

Blue-white light flickered and roiled against the ceiling from the gashes left behind, Jinx's jaw quivering in wonder and horror. Her throat choked closed several times as if in drowning, and she relaxed, shivering, against Raven's body.

Suddenly and thoroughly wrenched from her nirvana at the realization of what she'd done, Raven sobered in an instant; she set about in a trembling panic to undo the damage she had done, but for all her desperation, Jinx's form continued to destabilize and deteriorate. She twitched, her eyes glassing over as she evaporated slowly into that blue-white light, and, with a ghostly sigh, was gone.

Raven shot up in bed with a start, panting and sweating and her heart pounding frantically in her chest.

Jinx sprang up beside her out of reflex, groggy and incoherent. She looked around and found Raven. "Huh…?"

After a few moments, Raven allowed herself to relax back down. "Sorry. Nightmare."

"No kiddin'…" Jinx lay back down as well, never having been totally awake to begin with. Seconds later, she was out again.

Raven, however, took somewhat longer to nod off.

When she woke next, Raven found herself unexpectedly alone. Propping herself up on one arm, she found Jinx at the mirror—not her portal, but her actual wall mirror—idly passing one hand through it and pulling it out again.

Jinx glanced over when Raven moved. "Hey."

"Hey…" Raven sat up in earnest. "What, uh…?"

"Oh, y'know. Just…doin' the ghost thing, bein' bored…"

"You could've stayed sleeping," Raven pointed out. "Or gone—I don't know—spy on someone while _I_ was sleeping."

Jinx shrugged. "Spy on what? Bird boy makin' coffee? Cyborg snorin'? Ya realize it's, like…way-too-friggin'-early o'clock. Right?"

Raven swiveled to sit alongside the bed, stretching lightly. "Which brings me back to, 'You could've stayed sleeping.'"

"Eh. Not as nice when ya don't dream. Kinda sucks the fun out of it." Jinx paused in toying with the mirror. "Speakin' of, sounded like _you_ had enough dream for both of us. Care to share?"

"Not really," Raven declined.

"Pff, _lame_. Wake me up with your midnight freak-out, the least ya could do is spill the juicy details," Jinx complained.

"I'd really rather not," Raven said.

"But _Mom_!" Jinx whined in her most childlike fashion, stamping her foot.

Raven scrunched her lips in annoyance, but looked down regardless in consideration. Even if not thrilled with the notion, she found herself forced to admit that divulging the contents of her nightmare might have gone a long way in explaining her insistence on a lack of intimacy. Still, not before she was properly awake.

"Maybe later," Raven decided. "So, _about_ last night. You seemed…affected…when you got back. Care to share?" she mimicked Jinx's words in her monotone.

"Just…talkin'," Jinx said.

"And how'd that go?" Raven asked, mostly idly as she brushed her hair, much less a chore than Starfire's.

Jinx considered, weighing her options about where to start. One didn't have much to ask about. Another she would worry about later. That left two. Finally, she chose. "Who's Terra?"

Raven's hand paused in its work. "Beast Boy?"

"Had a picture," Jinx affirmed.

Raven set down her brush, planning her words carefully. "Terra was…a friend."

"Uh-huh, yeah. Got that, thanks. Little more than a friend, I'm guessin'. To him, anyway."

Somewhat reluctant—not due to any great secrecy surrounding the matter, but more a general dislike toward talking about it—Raven recounted Terra's story, brief but sincere. "When we found her, she had no memory of her old life. Repressed or removed, I can't be certain, but that she wasn't lying when she said she couldn't remember, I am sure."

"So?" Jinx asked, almost irked by the lousy ending to the tale. "Haul her in for some kinda brain probe or mind meld or whatever and find out."

Raven's only response was a look, as if to indicate that even _Jinx_ knew for how many reasons kidnapping a person and forcefully poking around in her brain wasn't an option. "Even if she _could_ remember. Would you want to? Used by Slade. Not only betrayed her new family but led an army against us. Destroyed Beast Boy." A few seconds ticked by. "She's happy. That's enough."

"Her, maybe. But what about him?" Jinx argued.

Raven thought about it, about the options, the possibilities; then, her shoulders fell slightly. "I think…he wouldn't be happy either way. I've felt it before, when he looks at that picture. It isn't _Terra_ he misses. It's the memory of her. Not just who she was, but who she could've been. What _they_ could've been. Bringing her back now wouldn't fix that. If she showed up today, I think it would be an awkward conversation, maybe a desperate attempt to pick up where they left off, but…it would always be damaged. It would never be what he remembered, and once he let himself realize that, it wouldn't last. That's what I think."

"That's stupid." Jinx sat down on the bed with a petulant huff.

"Maybe. Sometimes…sadness isn't something broken that can be fixed. Sometimes it's just…a recipe that went wrong. You can dress up the result, add salt or spices to try to make it work, but…well…sometimes it's not so bad. Other times I cook breakfast."

"Still stupid," Jinx said, then spared a glance at Raven. "Story behind that, I bet."

Raven chuckled softly, and then stood up and left for the bathroom. A quick shower and morning routine later, and she returned. When she left for her morning tea, Jinx followed. In the kitchen section of the common area, they found Robin alone with his coffee and the paper.

"Good morning," Raven greeted, floating over to prepare her tea.

"Raven," Robin greeted with a quick glance in Jinx's direction. "Jinx."

Jinx grumbled.

"Problem?" Raven asked.

"Did that last night, too," Jinx said. "Knew I was there before I even set off the stupid bell."

Wheels turned in Raven's mind, putting pieces together. "Robin and I share a particularly powerful psychic connection. It's possible he's learned to tap into it and sense your presence. Although, to accomplish that in less than a day is…impressive, even for him." She eyed Robin curiously.

The boy wonder merely sipped his coffee, hiding his smirk behind the cup.

Jinx narrowed her eyes at him. "Smug little… Seriously, who reads the paper anymore? You have a T.V. bigger than a bed! Use it!"

"Have a good night?" Robin asked.

"Serviceable," Raven replied. "You?"

Jinx scoffed, recalling both the end to her wanderings the night before and the old H.I.V.E. data that had indicated Starfire was usually an early riser. "Red's still asleep. Ain't she?"

"Not bad," Robin concurred. "Jinx and I had a nice conversation."

"Oh?"

Robin nodded. "About your powers, your emotions, how they operate. The basics."

"Prudent," Raven said.

"I thought so," Robin agreed.

"Sleep well?" Raven asked as more of a jab at, as Jinx had noted, the fact that Starfire hadn't yet awoken.

Robin nodded again. "For the most part. I had the weirdest dream," he said peculiarly.

Raven's cup split in half. "Did you?" she asked, betraying nothing with her tone.

"You're running out of cups," Robin observed.

"I buy in bulk." Raven swept the pieces into the trash and retrieved a new one.

"What about you?" Robin asked, putting the ball back into play. "Sleep well?"

Raven removed the teapot when it whistled, pouring it into her cup. "For the most part."

Robin put down his paper, quitting the game. "Is everything all right?"

"I had a nightmare," Raven said. "I'm fine. It's understandable, given what happened and what's on my mind."

"What is on your mind?" Robin asked, more genuine than accusatory.

Raven held her hands near her cup, enjoying the heat as it steeped. For a fleeting moment, she considered making a pass at lying, glossing over the truth and just letting it be. But although he possessed no empathic abilities himself, Robin easily rivaled her ability to discern the truth, perhaps even surpassed it.

"I've never…considered…starting a relationship before," Raven said. "Most of the feelings involved, I…haven't explored. I don't know how to handle them, or the extent of what dangers they might represent. Like I said: I'm fine. It was just on my mind."

Robin held his gaze a few moments more, whether in legitimate scrutiny or some psychological tactic only he could be certain. Then, he took another sip of coffee. "You need to set limits," he offered honestly. "When I started seeing Starfire, she was _much_ more comfortable with certain things than I was. We talked. Set limits. Moved slowly."

"We have," Raven assured him.

"Good," Robin said. "And you're…satisfied with them?"

"I am," Raven affirmed.

"All right, then." Robin picked up the paper again, and an early-morning quiet settled in between them.

" _Jesus_ ," Jinx said from the sidelines. "Are your mornings always this tense?"

His cup seemingly emptied by the next sip, Robin got up to pour himself another.

Jinx sneered. "Cream and _sugar_?" she mocked sweetly.

"Black, thanks," Robin said casually.

Both Jinx and Raven stopped cold.

As Jinx's brow furrowed in disbelief and her mouth drew open to speak, the door opened.

"Mornin', ya'll." Cyborg walked in with a yawn.

"Coffee?" Robin asked him.

"Yeah, been a long night," Cyborg said.

With a lingering look at their leader, Raven raised her cup to her mouth and blew lightly.

"How do ya _live_ with that?" Jinx asked her, incredulous.

Raven sipped her tea.

"Hear me, ya spikey little traffic light?" Jinx practically shouted at him. "If I wanted head games, I'd listen to the _song_!"

"Any progress?" Robin asked.

"Yeah, actually," Cyborg said. "More than I thought. I was in a hurry last time, so I spent most of the night reinforcin' the casings for the wirin' and the heat dissipation system. Won't fry itself the next time we flip the switch. Once I got it online, I found traces of Raven's energy still present wherever they were."

"The creatures," Robin surmised.

"I'm guessin'," Cyborg agreed. "They're fadin' quick, but thanks to them, I could get a lock on where we need to be. I figure we wait 'em out till their energy runs dry and they disappear. Then we get in and get it done. Today."

In many ways, Raven had found emotions in other people to function similarly to chemistry, or alchemy: two parts this, one part that, in this order and prepared in that way. This case, in particular, she had come to understand very well: one part shock, four parts surprise, two parts doubt and one part fear, blended smoothly until skeptical. A very common mixture among people.

"That's a good thing, in case you missed it," Raven pointed out to Jinx.

"I know that!" she snapped indignantly. "I'm just—"

"Skeptical because you aren't used to things going well without some kind of karmic reprisal or punchline, making it difficult for you to accept good news at face value until you find out what's going to 'go wrong,'" Raven said. She sipped her tea.

Jinx let out a breath, thoroughly deflated. "Yeah."

As if rehearsed, Raven raised a single finger, very pointedly, and then pointed it at Cyborg, who smiled broadly.

"Well, ain't nothin' to worry about this time. Ya got _me_ in your corner. And when I say it's gonna work, it's gonna work—and, oh yeah, it's gonna work." Cyborg took his coffee and headed for the door, back to work. "So get you're ghostin' in now, little lady, 'cause assumin' Raven can _put_ ya back as quick as I _got_ ya back, we'll have ya home in time for dinner."

"I'll get Star," Robin said, leaving his cup on the counter. "Cyborg, get Beast Boy."

Cyborg chuckled as they parted ways in the hallway; his voice carried back into the common area. "Aw, yeah. Gonna _enjoy_ this…"

"Well," Jinx pondered aloud, left alone with Raven and her tea, " _that_ escalated quickly."

"In a good way," Raven noted.

"Guess…so, yeah…" Jinx was forced to admit.

"Give it time. You'll get used to your plans working out, now that you've switched sides."

"Hero thing?" Jinx asked.

"Hero thing," Raven affirmed.

"Cool perk," Jinx said.

"It is." Finishing her tea more quickly than she normally would have, Raven washed her cup and put it away. "If you'll excuse me, I need to meditate. I'll need to focus a lot of energy to put you back."

"Sure— Hey, wait."

Raven paused.

"I, uh… That nightmare…"

"Yes?" Raven asked.

"It's just…with the tea cup, I've only ever seen ya do that when I was bein', y'know… So what was your nightmare…about?"

Raven considered her options.

She could minimalize, probably the safest route but also the most condescending and, if she was honest, disrespectful.

She could explain.

Or…

"Do you really want to know?" she asked.

"Uh…yeah?" Jinx replied, like she'd missed the joke somewhere.

"Okay." Raven sat down on the floor, gesturing for Jinx to do the same.

She complied, sitting directly across from the empath.

"Robin said he told you the basics, which means you know that my emotions don't control my powers. They fuel them. Here's what he probably didn't tell you."

Over the next few minutes, Raven explain the total compartmentalization of her emotions: how, until only recently in her life, her default state had been to feel nothing at all, for anyone, out of necessity, and how she had made an effort to change that following her father's defeat and her subsequent freedom.

"Some of my emotions are more easily experimented with than others," Raven continued, "taken in bite-sized pieces, shallow waters into which I can dip my foot a little at a time. Others aren't. Others are more powerful, amplified by what I am into enormous reservoirs not only ignored but repressed, for a _lifetime_. These cannot be experimented with in increments. To allow myself to experience them at all is to be submerged in a _deluge_ of urges and desires I don't know how to process, manage, or control. That…brings us to my nightmare."

"Okay…" Jinx bade Raven to go on.

Raven took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm going to show you. Everything you think, everything you feel, will be what I thought, what I felt. You will experience the dream, the thoughts and the feelings it evoked exactly as I did. When it's over, don't say anything. Give yourself a minute to digest what you're about to experience in the context of what I just said. Are you ready?"

"I…guess?"

Raven touched her hands to either side of Jinx's head. "I apologize. This will be a little…graphic."

After a few seconds of preparation, Raven recalled her dream, in every vivid detail, and allowed Jinx to experience it herself. Even as she let it play through, Raven again found herself disturbed by it and its myriad implications.

Fortunately, for as much as they sometimes encompassed, dreams acted much like compressed information: they took, in reality, much less time than the dreamer seemed to experience. In a matter of seconds, the dream concluded; Jinx flinched back a bit, visibly shaken.

" _Holy_ sh—"

Raven cut her off with a raised hand.

Jinx's eyes darted briefly about, back and forth, processing. Then, they locked on Raven. "All right… Not…exactly what I expected…" she prompted the empath, uncertain but willing to listen.

Raven didn't blink, but spoke very clearly. "What you just saw was a nightmare. Not a fact. Not an event. A frightening tapestry woven from the darkest what-ifs of my subconscious. None of that is a guarantee, but it _is_ my fear. Apart from abusing my power over you, the danger you just witnessed—the realization of it as a possibility—was what brought me back to my senses in the cave."

"We have to stop," Jinx said absentmindedly, remembering that night.

Raven gave a nod. "I…lost control. Lost myself. As an empath, I was feeding off your emotions. When you felt good, I felt good. When I hurt you, it hurt me, so I…used my dominion over you to alter the way you perceived pain, so that _everything_ felt good. After that, the path of least resistance was… Pleasure is complicated. But pain is…easy, and powerful… I sundered your _soul_ , which would have been excruciating, except you didn't feel it that way…"

Jinx said nothing, replaying the dream in her mind, the same flurry of passion that had overtaken them that first night—except different this time. Stronger. Her heart fluttered at the memory, the ecstasy, like a drug teetering her just at the edge, right on the brink, clouding out all sense of judgment or consideration in the single-minded pursuit of _more_.

"Normally…hurting you would hurt me, which would keep me grounded even if I wasn't thinking clearly. But your situation puts me in a unique position to abuse my power and remove that limiter."

Jinx let herself marvel at the memory, of being so completely eclipsed: the manifestation, the avatar of pure, undiluted emotion to whom rationality, thought and care of any kind were foreign languages and whose only native tongue was raw feeling. A body acting entirely on impulse, chasing greater and greater highs with reckless abandon and utter disregard for cost or consequence.

Jinx swallowed. "What you're sayin' is…you're so into me you're afraid ya might lose your mind."

In what she believed _had_ been a serious moment, Raven smiled, then failed to hold in a snicker. "That…is possibly the best thing you could've taken from that."

Jinx smirked. " _So_ …the neck-bitin' thing… Pretty into it, huh?"

Raven flicked her eyes away, pulling up her hood to hide her blush.

Jinx's grin widened. "Nice. All in all, pretty hot. Y'know, up to that _one_ part."

"Glad you think so." Raven stood up.

"Hey," Jinx said from the floor, halting Raven again. "Thanks. For showin' me that. I know ya didn't have to. Coulda just told me, or whatever. Probably wasn't the easiest thing to let me, y'know…see it. To let me in like that."

"I…need to meditate." Raven resumed her exit.

Jinxed swiveled on the floor, hands holding her ankles to keep her legs folded while she craned her neck back and her Cheshire smile stared upside-down at the empath; she giggled. "Aw! She _does_ do embarrassed!"

As Raven hung a left through the door, from the right hallway came the distant sound of blaring warning sirens, followed by the startled cries of a stable of animals.

An hour later, the entire group, save Raven, had convened in Cyborg's workshop; the bell jingled, talisman wafting idly as Jinx watched.

"Okay," Cyborg said, fiddling with calibrations. "It looks like the energy traces are gone."

"Then…the creatures are no longer there?" Starfire asked.

"Hopefully," Cyborg replied.

Beast Boy gulped. "So, uh…I don't mean to be a downer or anything, but what if they're…y'know…not."

"We avoid," Robin said, very deliberately. "Raven said they're slow. Probably can't fly. You take Cyborg and Star'll take me. We'll keep airborne, get where we need to go, get Jinx and get out. And remember: _don't_ touch them."

"Right…" Beast Boy said nervously.

"The portal should be stable this time," Cyborg told them. "I'll be keepin' a miniature wormhole open to communicate with the terminal remotely. When we're ready to go, I should be able to trigger it myself. Give us five hours. Should be enough time to get where we're goin', assumin' we show up somewhere near where ya'll left. If we're not back by then, get Raven and tell her to hit the big, red button."

Jinx jingled the _yes_ bell.

"Everyone ready?" Robin asked.

The team assembled alongside him in response.

"Here goes nothin'." Cyborg opened the control panel on one arm, pressed a few keys and then one more.

The portal snapped to life in response, blue and with its foreboding hum.

Cyborg first and Robin last, the group stepped through.

"Bird boy," Jinx said.

Robin lingered.

"Be careful."

With a sharp nod over his shoulder, Robin joined the others, and the portal closed behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: I apologize for the time that's passed since the last update. But then, that's pretty much expected, isn't it? To apologize, in this situation. I've read plenty. It's such convention at this point that they don't even faze me anymore, so I imagine that's probably what you're feeling when you read mine. Still, it's there, and I do mean it. I had to undergo a procedure I hadn't expected, and it put me out of commission for quite a while. To those of you still here, thank you.

And to those of you who comment, thank you even more. Unless you write these, you might not have any idea how much motivation they provide, or how nice it feels to have people express that they enjoy something you've made.

To everyone who reviewed, thank you so much. And to NoodleSoupIsYummy in particular, in reference to writing actual novels, believe it or not, I have. Now, getting them through an agency without resorting to self-publication, that's another story. I've done it, but not often.

Thank you all for reading! As always, comments are wonderful. And I don't mean to give an ultimatum, but the truth is they do a lot to inspire devoting more time to hobby pieces like this.

 _Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately._

A/N#2: Apparently, this site does not support strike-through text. That's odd, considering how universally it's used in prose to indicate things thought but not said without interrupting the flow of dialogue. There really isn't any good replacement. EDIT: After some discussion and suggestions in the comments, I decided to go with one of those, instead. I wasn't fond of it in my head, but it's kind of growing on me after testing it out. I'm not really sure which I prefer, now. Still a strike-through fan, but this way may work as well or better for this purpose, specifically. Thanks, TacoKing!

Also, mild intimacy at the end of this chapter. I don't use what might be considered vulgar or graphic terminology, but in case anyone's bothered by it.

Chapter 8

Awake

Blue light consumed Robin's vision as he passed through the portal and set foot on the other side; the ground crunched beneath him. Illuminated by Cyborg's shoulder light and Starfire's hands, he looked down, then out, and then around at the scorched, windswept wastes, exactly as Raven had described.

"Guess Raven wasn't kiddin'," Cyborg said with distaste.

Beast Boy shivered in the breeze while Starfire let her light fade, battle-readiness giving way to curiosity.

"My apologies, but I do not wish to stay in this place any longer than is necessary." Starfire turned her gaze up and out into the starless void. "I find it…most unsettling."

"Agreed. Cyborg?" Robin turned to the metal man.

Cyborg held out his arm, scanning as he turned in place. "Gettin' faint electromagnetic signals over there. Could be the life pod. Dunno what else it'd be."

"All right. Let's—"

"Robin!" Starfire shouted, pointing behind their leader.

The whole group turned to find what they could only presume to be one of the creatures Raven and Jinx had encountered. It's eerie iridescence, malformed appearance and stiff, unnatural movements inspired in Raven's comrades the same dread and primal urgency as it had in the empath, for a moment holding them all captive in disturbed paralysis.

It was one thing to hear Raven describe it, but another entirely to see it firsthand.

Then, Robin was rudely jerked back.

"Remember," Starfire told him. "We must not touch them."

Robin looked from Starfire back to the thing, realizing only then, as his faculties returned to him, how close he had allowed it to get; he narrowed his eyes at the sensation it inspired: a tugging, as if on a string tied to a wooden block buried somewhere in his chest. "It," he said. "There's only one of them."

"One? I thought you said there wouldn't be _any_!" Beast Boy protested.

"I did, and there shouldn't be," Cyborg confirmed, checking his readings again. "Raven's energy was gone when we went through, had been for hours. I waited to be sure."

"It's me," Robin realized. "Our bond. I've always thought it was just that: a psychic connection. But whether she intended to or not, Raven must have left a piece of herself behind. And this thing's feeding off it."

Cyborg turned his scanner on Robin to confirm. "Not enough to bring 'em all back." Then he turned to the creature. "Not even really enough for one."

The misshapen thing continued to reach and drag and lurch toward Robin, and for a few seconds more, the group watched.

One in uncertainty.

One in fear.

One in pity.

And one in something else entirely, something that did not lend itself to so simple a description.

Starfire's gaze poured into the horrible thing as the essence of it flowed back into her. Every stilted, doll-like motion, every wisp of light that rolled off its unstable form, every moment it existed it tore at the very deepest part of the Tameranean's heart—tore at it, ripped and shredded and held it close and cried into it, bit down and thrashed and sobbed and _screamed_ into it; Starfire's jaw trembled, her eyes wide with concern, and she stepped back away.

"It is wrong," she said terribly.

Robin reexamined the thing. "It…looks pretty much like Raven said it—"

"No," Starfire cut him off. "You do not understand. It is _wrong_. It is wrong that it _is_. Please," she implored them, "I do not wish to look upon it any longer."

Robin took her hand in a calming gesture, what little good it did. "Starfire, it's okay."

"No, it is _not_ ," she insisted. "It is…the most awful thing I could never have imagined. It is the _opposite_ of okay."

The phrase, while perhaps innocuous from anyone else, from Starfire possessed a weight both stunning and profound: it was the _opposite_ of okay—the antithesis, of all that could ever have been right and good and natural, of all the splendor and glory of creation, the antithesis, an existential miscarriage of being. The opposite of okay.

Robin switched his view to Cyborg. "You said you found the pod."

Cyborg gave a nod, then indicated a direction. "That way. Not sure how far."

"Then let's go. Starfire, can you fly?"

Beast Boy wasted no time in morphing into a pterodactyl, more than ready to go.

When Starfire failed to respond, Robin took her gently by the shoulders, turning her to face him and forcefully averting her gaze from the creature. "Starfire."

Her eyes, fearful and wet, connected with his briefly before she blinked them closed and wiped them on her arm. "I— Yes. A moment."

Unsteadily at first, Starfire took to the air, hoisting Robin along with her. Beast Boy and Cyborg followed, and they flew on in shared silence. An hour or two later, Cyborg's light illuminated a debris field beneath them, and they set back down.

Beast Boy took his human shape, taking in the wreckage strewn everywhere. "Whoa…"

"Debris field's pretty wide, but the pod should be nearby." Cyborg started walking, and the others followed.

They all turned back at a foreign light to find another of the creatures trying to take shape from the ground. Starfire looked away, while Robin took it upon himself to lead the thing around their perimeter and out of the way.

"There." Cyborg pointed ahead as the pod came into view.

As they got closer, Beast Boy knelt to examine the set of crawling tracks leading up to the pod. Two more sets led away. "Looks like this is the place."

Cyborg approached the pod but turned to the others. "Ya'll might…wanna hang back on this one. She's alive, but…the way she's gonna be hooked up, it ain't gonna be pretty."

They did, and he disengaged the locking mechanisms and opened the hatch. Sure enough, Jinx awaited him inside, just the way he'd imagined she would: sewn and stitched through by wires and tubes of various colors—but no two ever the same. He found each one meticulously labeled and, taking some time to gather a lay of the land, saw that she had been disconnected from everything unrelated to life support and powering the pod.

He closed the hatch; the locks engaged with a clunking thunk and a hiss. "Time to go."

Beast Boy raised a hand. "Yes, please."

"Seconded," Robin agreed, walking backwards in a circle as the thing followed him.

Cyborg entered a command on his arm. "Motion carries." One more key press, and the portal flashed to life nearby.

Beast Boy first, Cyborg followed with the pod over his shoulder, Robin stepping through backward after.

Starfire, however, lingered on the threshold.

She looked back at the creature, who had stopped moving altogether in the absence of its goal and begun to evaporate without reforming. It shook unsteadily, one leg collapsing and followed swiftly by the others until it lay motionless on the ground, a puppet without strings.

Starfire winced. "I am…sorry. Truly, sorry."

The creature faded from view, and she stepped through the portal.

On the other side, the world returned. Like a switch had been flipped, the oppressive atmosphere imposed upon the group by the other dimension vanished.

Beast Boy let out a sigh of relief. "Man, that place was _freaky_. Not exactly, uh…vacation destination of the year, am I right?"

"No kiddin'." Cyborg set down the pod. "Whole universe full of ghosts."

"And no stars," Beast Boy added. "How weird was that?"

"Starfire, you okay?" Robin approached her, but she shied away.

"I…am fine. I will be. The experience was…quite jarring."

Robin took her hand, massaging it gently with his thumb. "Okay," he said. "I'm here. If you need me."

She smiled. "This, I know."

Robin smiled in return.

"I, uh… I'll go get Raven." Beast Boy excused himself, but paused when the _yes_ bell jingled. "Oh. Hey."

Jinx folded her arms. "Went that well, huh?"

Robin said nothing.

"So, what'd ya think? If we go the timeshare route, I want summers," Jinx said in mock excitement.

"Get Raven," Robin said, and Beast Boy took off.

Cyborg opened up the pod and got to work. "I don't know what side-effects we're lookin' at from Raven's end, but from a medical standpoint… I mean, muscles are gonna be wonky, probably gonna be hungry, eyes are gonna hurt, but…more or less okay. I'll get ya cleaned up and disconnected so you're not chokin' on tubes or pullin' out wires."

"Great," Jinx said, simultaneously jingling the _yes_ bell and clearly unenthused by the mention of tubes and wires. Also not lost to her: the fact that Cyborg had deliberately faced the pod _away_ before opening it. She made no effort to approach, merely crossing her arms where she stood and diverting her attention. "So…what did happen?"

"We saw one of the creatures," Robin told her, still doing his best to comfort the Tameranean and presumably, to everyone else, just volunteering the report for Jinx's sake.

Robin said no more, but didn't have to. His lack of urgency and Starfire's condition painted a pretty good picture. Even more, seeing Starfire made Jinx wonder about her own reaction to the things, whether Raven's calming influence had affected it and exactly how much.

A black raven materialized through the floor with a screech before disappearing and leaving Beast Boy and the empath behind.

Raven looked to Cyborg, who gave a nod.

"Should be good to go," he said.

"What should I do?" Jinx asked.

Raven walked past her to the pod, focused entirely on the task at hand. "Nothing. But I will ask everyone else to stand over there and not move." She gestured at the door.

"Are we at risk?" Robin asked.

Raven held her hands near the pod. "No. But this is a very complex set of delicate, powerful energies, and I don't want anyone in the way or breaking my concentration. Think of it like…weaving a multi-planar fractal. Out of spun glass. With my mind."

"Should we…maybe leave the room?" Beast Boy asked.

Raven shook her head once. "You're alive. Your ambient energy will help keep the lattice stable, as long as you don't move. If you need to do anything, do it now. Once I begin, this will take some time."

Beast Boy held up a pointed finger. "I, uh… I'll be right back." He left in the direction of the bathroom.

"Is it…dangerous?" Jinx asked, trying to hide her worry out of reflex, even though she knew it wouldn't matter.

"No," Raven assured her. "Worst case, it doesn't work and I go back to the drawing board. But it is taxing, and I would rather not have to wait a week to try again if something goes wrong. I've…never done this before, but I imagine, if it works, it will also be very…jarring. We're basically plugging a live wire back into a machine. Be ready for a jolt."

When Beast Boy returned, the group took up positions they could keep for the long haul, and Raven began.

As Jinx and the others looked on, she pulled up her hood—presumably to block out distractions—and raised her arms in a way reminiscent of a musical conductor. Strange and arcane whispers flowed from beneath the hood in a fluid, ethereal stream, her feet planted firm but her arms, hands, and fingers drawing shapes in the air; the lights dimmed, but in a way wholly unfamiliar to the onlookers: as though the electronics themselves had not, but the _light_ had, in fact, grown dimmer.

Darkness overtook them and lingered for several minutes, Raven's airy chant continuing all the while.

Then, Raven's hands appeared in the gloom, illuminated by a blue-white glow that traced their every motion. A particularly emphatic utterance gave way to a few moments of silence, and the same glow appeared from the inside of the pod; Raven's hands raised, and her chant and ritual resumed.

The glow from the pod pulsed in rhythmic fashion—a heartbeat—and with each one, revealed more and more of a marvelous tapestry of energy threaded through the room and its occupants like crystallized smoke hanging just slightly out of phase. At each pulse, the room brightened, creeping back from the darkness with every beat.

At one point, Jinx's eyes wandered to her companions, only to find many of them staring right back at her.

The light and the lattice hummed after a time, increasing in volume and luminosity until they forced all eyes closed and submerged the assembly in deafening, otherworldly bass that continued to build. At the peak of its crescendo, the humming sound culminated in a violent _crack_ accompanied by a brief but brilliantly pink explosion.

In its wake, the group found the light, the lattice and the sound all gone and the room returned to normal.

Approaching the nearest wall, Raven leaned against it, shoulders heaving with great, heavy breaths. "You can move," she managed between them. "It's done."

"Did it work?" Robin asked.

An unsteady groan emanated from the pod, followed by another that escalated into a mostly pained, partly annoyed, " _Ow_ …"

"Guess so," Beast Boy replied.

Cyborg held up one arm, scanning as he made his way over. "Life signs steady." He stopped at Raven. "You okay?"

Nodding and brushing him off, she directed his attention to more pressing matters.

A few quick checks over the pod and its occupant, and Cyborg eyed the others. "Everything looks fine. Pretty much what we expected."

"My _ass_ …" Jinx retorted rudely, then whimpered more quietly, "Why, oh why didn't I take the _blue_ pill…?"

"Please don't puke," Beast Boy begged her, queasy himself at the thought.

Jinx groaned again.

"Your muscles are actually in pretty good shape," Cyborg told her. "Stiff, but not atrophied. Just maybe give it a minute before y—"

" _Augh_!" Jinx rolled over in a flash, thrashing her head and covering her face with one arm—and growling at the pain of moving it there.

"—open your eyes," Cyborg finished. "Go slow. You'll be fine." Interacting remotely with the room's settings, he lowered the lights some.

"Gee, thanks… And not a moment too soon…" Jinx quipped.

Waved over by Cyborg, Raven approached the pod to view her handiwork while the others lingered back a bit, giving them space. The empath's brow lifted, shocked or impressed, at the colorful flood of language pouring from between Jinx's clenched teeth.

Beast Boy's ears twitched. "Whoa. Guess Gizmo rubbed off a little, huh?"

Gradually, Jinx calmed down as the stabbing pain in her eyes ebbed. She lay still afterward, one arm still over her face only because she hadn't bothered to move it; she drew in several long, slow breaths. One at a time, different muscles groups visibly relaxed, starting with her feet, up her legs to her body, her hands and her arms, and finally her shoulders and upper back.

"Sorry," Jinx said, and took in another large breath.

"For wh—" Cyborg cut himself short when Jinx's exhale coincided with a ring of pink energy that expanded until it hit the walls, subsequently frying most of the tech. The metal man hung his head with a sigh. "At least the lights still work…"

Squinted tightly, Jinx's eyes fluttered in their attempts to open. When they finally succeeded, a smirk slithered across her lips; stiffness and pain and all, her right hand up flew up and took a stunned Raven by the collar. "Hello, _nurse_!"

Before the empath could react, she found herself yanked down into a kiss; with several snapping _pops_ , the lights went out.

"Come on!" Cyborg complained in the dark.

"I know, right?" Beast Boy agreed. "I mean, I spend _hours_ coming up with material, and _she_ keeps cracking jokes! It's alive, welcome to the world of tomorrow, mostly dead all day—I had a whole set!"

"Corpse breath," Raven noted. "Thanks."

"Corpse Bride! Hello!" Beast Boy exclaimed, case-in-point.

The room's emergency lights kicked on, dimmer but workable.

"How are you feeling?" Raven asked.

Eyes still closed, Jinx scrunched her face in discomfort. "Like a sardine." She smirked. "Probably smell like one, too."

"Not physically," Raven amended.

Jinx seemed to consider the question. "Dunno. Normal, I guess? What am I lookin' out for?"

"Baseless depression, undirected rage, nihilistic disregard," Raven replied. "Anything different, powerful, and seemingly without cause that might indicate your soul hasn't properly adjusted. Anything missing, or there now that wasn't before. Anything you don't recognize."

A vicious grin spread across Jinx's lips, accompanied by a furious pink glow that consumed her eyes. "The sudden urge to reverse the wheels of probability, undo all the order of creation, and rule over the unmitigated chaos into which I've plunged the universe as its mad god-queen?"

Beast Boy blanched.

Jinx's fervor disappeared in a blink. "Nah. Mostly just want a shower. Like, the hottest one of my life. Maybe scrub off the first few layers of skin. Y'know."

Starfire inched forward in the background, clearly itching to hug or help or _something_ , but admirably restrained herself. "I…realize that you may wish _the space_ while you recover, but please, is there anything that you require? May we assist you, somehow?"

Jinx's voice came evenly, rehearsed, and without hesitation. "Bath bomb. Exfoliating gloves. Candles."

Starfire put on a look of concern. "You…desire an explosive?"

"We can handle that," Robin volunteered, promising Starfire that he would explain what Jinx had meant.

Beast Boy raised his hand. "Exfoliating gloves. Spare set, never opened. You can keep 'em if you want." He was met by several curious stares. "What? A guy can't appreciate good skincare?"

Taking it for what it was, Raven chimed in next. "And I've got candles." She then put on a tiny smile and commented to Jinx, "You put thought into that."

Jinx's eyes narrowed, playing up the drama. "Bein' dead. Really puts things in perspective."

"What really matters?" Raven asked, dryly but playfully just the same.

Jinx offered a slow nod.

Raven crossed her arms lightly. "At least you've got priorities."

The next few minutes saw the group adjourned from Cyborg's workshop: Robin and Starfire off to procure Jinx's first request and Cyborg to run a post-op diagnostic on his machine, while Raven accompanied a fuzzy green bear as it carried Jinx from the pod up to her room. The changeling then retrieved his spare set of exfoliating gloves and departed afterward with a joke and a grin, leaving the two alone.

"Sure you're all right?" Raven asked, watching an unsteady Jinx prop herself up on the threshold to the bathroom.

Jinx waived off the concern. "Oh, yeah. Meta human. I'll be doin' backflips and cartwheels in an hour."

"If you do need anything, I'll be reading," Raven told her.

"Uh-huh." Jinx's reply came between the sounds of her presumably negotiating her way into the combination tub-shower.

Raven, meanwhile, took a seat at the foot of her bed. She doffed her hood and, hands resting idly on her knees, looked down at them. Through them.

As Jinx went about her business a room away, Raven's mind returned to another villain altogether, his self-assured bravado, his cocky sneer, his confidence. His pinprick pupils, eyes wide with the most genuine fear, his frantic, panicked scrambling for safety he would not find. The satisfaction she'd felt, her vision bathed in red, zeroed in on his racing heart, his rising blood pressure—his mounting horror—as her tendrils sprang from the depths, coiled, and dragged him screaming into the abyss.

Emotion run rampant, out of control. Unleashed.

Her hands curled on her knees.

For a moment, she wondered what other people must have worried over when considering their first sexual experiences, or if they worried at all. The situations were hard to pinpoint, so her empathic tendencies hadn't given her much intelligence on the subject. Maybe they didn't even worry at all, until the moment. Maybe they wondered, mostly. Idealized. Fantasized.

She worried.

At least, now she did. Jinx's feelings didn't appear to have changed, which meant…

Her memory flashed back to that night in the cave, now with the advantage of afterthought and time to process. Though she believed she understood it better now, she still found the results largely nonsensical. The acts themselves, simple enough, and kissing strange enough on its own. How or why any of it should have produced the feelings it did escaped her.

Two slices of bread, some fillings, maybe some kind of spread: put them together, and they made a sandwich, a logical sum of the parts involved.

Bodies pressing together, hands feeling, mouths blindly groping other mouths: put them together, and they created an utterly inexplicable sense of comfort, of fulfillment, of completeness, a wholeness like she hadn't before experienced and doubted she would encounter anywhere else ever again. Two plus two that equaled not the four it should have, but some grand and mystifying sum that should not have been.

Acceptance?

Maybe. Or more than that—her whole life at arm's length, and then to be not only wanted but _desired_ , and desired for who she was and not _what_ she was or what she could do.

Still…

In a world of billions adrift in a sea of limitless dimensions, that any sort of connection with any single individual should carry such weight, that a person's feelings of emotional completeness should rise or fall by the desires or approval of any one being, it made so little sense.

It occurred to her at that point that, in her explorations of her emotions, she had encountered an entirely new creature: comprised entirely of raw emotional connection down to its most basic components, it defied rationalization by virtue of its very nature, and by that same nature begged to be accepted simply because it was, on its own terms.

Non-Euclidian…

A thing that could not be contained or defined in the context of the reality she understood: in her case, reason.

Taken that way, it would not change. Could not. She could either accept it and explore it further, or deny it and banish it away back to its own reality.

The decision, a simple one, might have been very different some years earlier. Still, Raven found herself drawing a deep breath at what it implied, the daunting task ahead. This was not simply some new equation or formula she could learn and integrate into her existing schema, no; this was an entirely different _math_ , where numbers she knew might or might not exist and where two plus two might indeed equal whatever it wanted.

With that thought, she resolved to alter her emotional explorations, somewhat: to try to understand them in her usual way, of course, but also to take them at face value, on their own merits—to no longer reason them through to decide whether they were valid, but to _accept_ them as valid and _also_ reason them through.

Her entire emotional worldview, turned on its head so profoundly by one impulsive night in a cave.

Along with her desire to chase that feeling again, however—and she did have that desire, could not deny that she did—came the worries.

Obscure, intangible, unquantifiable worries. Worries at the unknown. Rage, at least, she understood, had experienced before, knew what to expect. This, whatever it was, though she could feel its pressure behind the dam, she knew nothing else about it.

And _that_ worried her. Not knowing.

What it would feel like. What effects it would have. What risks it would present.

Resolved, Raven reached out to several books on a nearby shelf. Engulfed in her dark aura, they levitated over to her, opened, and began turning pages as she scanned through them. At the very least, she could look for a way to suppress or dampen her powers long enough to create a safe period for experimentation. Mitigation. That way, at least if she _did_ lose control, well…better a kitten than a lion.

Spells…no. A loss of control precluded anything that required concentration.

Glyphs?

No. A glyph large enough to suppress her potential, even for a short time, would have to take up half the city. Wards, as well. Unless she planned to rearrange a few skyscrapers into a totem.

Runes.

Possible. The right ink, infused with her blood, given the right enchantment and tattooed under the skin… Risky, though. Too little, wouldn't work. Too much, might not wear off.

One of her books flipped past a page diagraming a set of manacles designed to restrain sorcerers, and she paused.

That could work.

Maybe not that exactly, but the right variation.

Set of wristlets, anklets, maybe a collar—solid iron cast from materials from her father's home dimension, infused with her soul self during the smelting process and quenched in water with the right enchantment. Uncomfortable, probably. Maybe even painful. Burning sensation from the iron, high internal temperature from the energy suppression, possible other feverish symptoms. But it would probably do the job, at least long enough for one night at a time.

Probably.

The materials would be easy enough, for Cyborg anyway. Leave Robin home and they could travel the dimension safely, and his scanners wouldn't have any trouble finding the requisite iron.

But the enchantment…

Far, far beyond her ability.

In its search for candidates to perform the enchantment, her mind found itself back in the ruins of Azarath left in her father's wake. Her heart sank at the memory. Azarath itself might rebuild, but…

Without Azar, the only one left might have been…Doctor Fate. _Maybe_. If she could contact him. And if he didn't immediately distrust her. And if he could be bothered to try.

With a sigh, Raven closed the tomes and placed them back on the shelf, done for the moment. She would have to approach Robin about some way to contact Fate through the League and…try to figure out how to voice her request so that the interdimensional symbol of Order wouldn't know the whole thing stemmed from the need for a safe way to get past first base.

Not that such restraints couldn't have other practical uses, should she ever decide to explore emotions like Rage.

Of course, _that_ thought brought others to mind, of other…practical…uses certain people might have found. She didn't relish the thought of introducing her own kryptonite into the universe, especially for something as ultimately trivial as intimacy. But as much distaste as she had for the prospect, the rational side of her couldn't deny the necessity of it.

She had done admirably well in her life so far, she thought. But if anything were to happen, if she were to slip one day, make a mistake or somehow otherwise lose herself to her heritage…

Well, most people put together plans to handle their funeral expenses. She could only hope that hers didn't fall into the wrong hands.

A knock at her door.

Raven approached, and the door slid open to reveal Robin and Starfire, who smiled.

"We have returned!" Starfire proclaimed, presenting Raven with the bath bomb.

Raven eyed it, and then Robin.

"She, uh…liked the idea. Of the bath bombs," he explained.

Raven switched to Starfire. "How much?"

"Oh, Raven! They are glorious! You merely place them in the water, and they do the most amazing things!" Starfire told her.

"Sorry we took so long," Robin apologized. "Turns out they, uh…don't sell by the gross at the mall. We had to talk to a distributor. There's a crate coming next week."

Starfire clapped excitedly, bouncing in place. "There are many different kinds, as well! We will try them all, yes?" She took Robin's arm.

"Sure," he said with a smile.

From the bathroom, the sound of a rushing faucet replaced the shower.

Raven glanced back, then faced her friends again. "I should…"

"Right," Robin said.

After thanking them for the bath bomb, Raven retreated inside her room and retrieved several candles. She lit them, then levitated them along with the bath bomb and a set of pajamas into the bathroom.

" _Thank you_ ," Jinx sang from inside.

A little envious of Jinx's relaxation, Raven decided on a little self-indulgence of her own. She entered a few keystrokes into the wall panel near the door, then returned to the foot of her bed and took up her hovering lotus position. Not long after, the lights dimmed—in the bathroom as well—and the sound of falling rain trickled over the room. The scent of wet, fallen leaves drifted from the air vent, and Raven allowed herself to drift into meditation.

An hour or so later, Jinx emerged from the bathroom in her borrowed clothes.

"Pretty cool," she said, in reference to the room's atmosphere.

"Thanks," Raven replied. "It…helps me relax." She floated silently down to the floor, then raised a curious eyebrow when Jinx ran her fingers up through her wet hair with a crackle of pink sparks; it emerged dry and in its usual style. "Interesting," the empath observed.

Jinx smirked. "The _real_ secret to great lift. So, what's the deal with these?" She indicated her pajamas. "Didn't take ya for a satin fan. Not that they ain't comfortable, I mean."

"A gift, from Starfire," Raven explained offhandedly, retrieving a clean uniform and a towel from her closet. "I usually just sleep in uniform."

"Kinda figured," Jinx said.

"I'll be back in a minute," Raven told her.

Jinx plopped down on the side of the bed. "'Kay."

As she disappeared into the bathroom, it occurred to Raven to warn Jinx about some of the books and objects in her room. To even her own surprise, she mostly put aside the worry. Jinx was a practitioner herself, after all. She would sense anything magical, and would know better than to meddle with anything she didn't understand.

A quick and pleasant shower later, Raven returned. Wet towel set in place to dry, she sat alongside her bed, retrieved her hairbrush from the bedside table, and brushed, allowing her senses to venture out as she did; Jinx didn't appear to have moved from the spot she had occupied when Raven had left. The small bandages Cyborg had placed after removing the wires and tubes had already been removed, the sites more or less healed.

Anticipation. Nervousness. Anxiety. Excitement buried in there somewhere.

Nothing wholly unexpected, although it did give the empath a rather clear image of where her guest's mind had wandered in her absence.

"So…now what?" Jinx asked, in a way that gave the empath the impression she was fully aware that her feelings were on the table. "I mean, bird boy offered me my own room if ya—"

"I don't see the point in that," Raven told her. "You've indicated that you haven't lost interest. I'm interested in exploring further. We had what I understand to have been an extended and very unorthodox first date in another dimension, and we've already slept in the same bed, as it were."

"Okay," Jinx said.

"But…you do need to understand: this isn't just new to me, in the dating sense. Every feeling _involved_ with it is new. What they mean, how they feel, how they affect me, what they _are_. While I'm comfortable with you, I'm uncomfortable with all the parts of me being explored, here—in every sense," Raven told her.

Jinx turned her body to face Raven, her face honest and her hands flat in surrender. "Totally get it. Your pace. No pressure."

Raven looked down, unsure how to respond, unable even to define what her pace _was_.

"So, uh…normally I wouldn't ask—kinda kills the mood a little, takes the fun outta bein' spontaneous—but since this is a special situation: how, uh…how far did ya wanna go, exactly? Like, what're ya…y'know…okay with?"

"I…don't really know," Raven admitted. "What we did before should be fine. Maybe a little more than that, but…probably clothes-on, maybe wait for anything _too_ serious until I can take precautions against any risks. At least until I have a better idea of what the risks _are_."

"So…have fun, but play it by ear," Jinx paraphrased.

"More or less," Raven affirmed.

Jinx looked away, her feelings swirling and swelling between apprehension and anticipation.

"So…now what?" Raven asked.

Jinx opened her mouth slightly at having her question thrown back at her by the person who was supposed to have answered it. "Uh…"

"Well…what would you do if it were someone else?" Raven asked. "Other than me."

"What would _I_ do?" Jinx made sure.

"Within reason," Raven stipulated.

Jinx thought a moment. "Ya like music?"

Raven shook her head some. "Not really."

"Okay…" Changing tactics or just skipping a step, Jinx got up long enough to turn out the lights completely, then returned to the bed and lay down on it properly.

A touch on her arm, and Raven allowed herself to be led down onto her side, facing away with Jinx behind.

They lay there, seconds ticking by in still silence.

Uncertainty.

"Little weird," Jinx commented.

"Why?" Raven asked.

"Input," Jinx said.

Choosing an answer from the multiple-choice quiz going on in her mind, Raven scooched closer.

Relief, reassurance.

Correct answer, apparently.

She raised her head a bit to allow Jinx's arm to slide under her pillow, while the other came to rest over her midsection.

That relief, however, ebbed quickly, the old uncertainty creeping up from below.

Raven grumbled inwardly. "How do you know?"

"What?" Jinx asked.

"How do you know what to do?" Raven asked, trying not to let her annoyance slip through.

"I-I don't know," she said, put on the spot. "Just…don't think about it. Are you not into it?"

" _You're_ not," Raven said pointedly. "Because _I_ keep screwing up, missing steps, flubbing lines. I can feel it."

Realization, guilt, regret.

"Like that, right there," Raven said. "I did it again."

"No, you just— I didn't—" Jinx took a breath. "Whaddaya want?"

"I don't know," Raven said, then chose a new approach. "You want to do more. You're hesitating. Apprehensive. Why?"

"I…wasn't sure if—"

"I'm clueless. If you're waiting for signals, you probably won't get them because I don't know how or when to send them," Raven told her. "But I'm also an empath. If you're put off, I'll be put off. If you're into it, I'll be into it. You already have my permission, so unless I tell you to stop, just—"

She stopped abruptly when she felt a hand move from her stomach up to her bust.

Then, apprehension again.

This time, Raven grit her teeth and ripped off the Band-Aid herself, taking Jinx's hand and pressing it down.

Like a chain reaction, in a flash Raven found herself pulled on top into a straddling position. Hands touched down on her arms, feeling their way to her chest, down her stomach, around her sides and up along her back as they guided her down into a kiss. She tensed when the hands ran down past her waist to her bottom and squeezed; Jinx drew in a seething breath through her nose.

But rather than the awkwardness she had expected to feel while having her body explored by unfamiliar hands, she found herself not only okay with it, but perhaps even more than that. The prospect of being someone's object of attraction, of allowing her body to be used by someone in that way, made her heart race.

The empath felt her partner's hips begin to roll in a way that suggested unconscious movement. It turned deliberate, however, when Jinx slid her feet up, planting them on the bed to bend her knees, and began pulling Raven closer in time with her rhythm.

Raven's heart fluttered at the new emotion—almost _completely_ new to her—that swelled above the rest in that moment: arousal. Toward her. And alongside it, the electric excitement from the cave.

Like a catalyst, the two feelings reacted instantly inside her, calling up the urge she remembered. Careful to keep a kill-switch of control, she turned it loose; it sprang forth eagerly, moving her hips in tandem on her own; shifting her face next to her partner's, she breathed heated breaths against her ear.

Jinx's response was immediate: a sigh, a tightened grip. Elation.

Spurred on, Raven reciprocated the gesture, biting down gently on her partner's ear and moaning softly into it. Before she realized it, one of her hands had moved down the front of Jinx's body below her waist—fingers still but firm, tracking the motions of her hips and giving her something to move against.

Jinx's excitement spiked with a shakily whispered something at the realization of some long-held fantasy. Her hands moved up, past Raven's back to her shoulders, locking her in place. She shivered when Raven let out another sound, not a grunt, a moan or a groan, but something invested, hungry, and pressed their bodies—and her hand—more firmly, insistently.

Jinx's pace quickened, and Raven nibbled a little harder, tugged a bit, and nuzzled encouragingly. She imagined she must have said something, as well, although she failed to recall exactly what. But whatever it had been, it had been enough; one of Jinx's hands took the bedspread in a death grip while the other flew down and took Raven's at the wrist, holding it just right. Her muscles tightened with a strained, sustained groan, and then she relaxed entirely onto the bed, panting and heart thumping hard enough that Raven could feel it between them.

But at that moment, she barely noticed, her entire emotional landscape clouded over by the peaceful, satisfied haze flowing from her partner. Even as she felt it fade, she let her eyes lose focus along with her mind, every conscious thing sacrificed to better appreciate the short-lived, perfect contentment; for an instant, probably a brief one, nothing else mattered or existed: worry, stress, fear, doubt, all of it lost in a blissful fog that refused to be ruined. For an instant, absolute balance.

Seconds rolled past like a mounting breeze, blowing away that fog little by little until it was gone.

In its wake, a new memory emerged. The cocktail of pleasurable sensations inspired in her partner, the exhilaration of climax, the emotional primality of its pursuit took root inside the empath and grew—quickly—a tiny seed exploding into a monstrous, alien mass of tendrils, grasping and lashing out in their blind pursuit of _more_.

With the modicum of control she had reserved, Raven cut them off at the base, silencing the new urges in one swift, decisive mental stroke.

Then, it grew back.

A hand probed her in the dark, undoubtedly in reciprocation of what she'd just done, and no sooner did it touch her than did everything she had silenced force its way back in a fearsome, shrieking resurgence.

Struggling to calm her heaving breaths, she took Jinx's hand and held it at bay as she beat back the urge, the impulse to take things much further than their mostly innocent display and into she didn't know what. Thoughts of flesh and tastes, of feelings and incredible sensations invaded her mind as she fought to clear it.

"What about you?" Jinx asked, only seconds having passed.

"I'm..." _hungry_..."okay."

"Are—"

"I'm _fine_ ," Raven insisted harshly, chiding herself afterward for her misdirected anger. "I just..." _want to wring you_ ** _dry_**..."need a minute…"

A second.

Another.

"Okay," Jinx said.

Raven moved off her, holding her head as she pushed her way through the torrent of feelings to fix the crack she had allowed in the dam. "It isn't you. It's..." _amazing incredible wonderful_ ** _addictive_**. "Just..."

"Are ya okay? D'ya need—"

Raven jerked away from where she imagined Jinx would reach out for her in the dark. "Please..." _touch me hold me want me make me give me_ ** _more_** … "Ugh..." She held her head more tightly. "S-Stop..." _making me_ ** _wait_**...

Worry.

Pink light emanated from Jinx's hands, illuminating Raven's huddled form. "Raven?"

Raven curled into herself, squeezing into a ball. "I…" _need it want you want_ ** _everything_**. "I c-can't..." _stop now wait any longer_ ** _live_** _without_ ** _more_**. "I…" She looked up, and—when she saw Jinx recoil at whatever it was she saw in her eyes in that moment—released the kill-switch she had held at the beginning.

Like a breaker flipped, without any drifting off or countdown or fading out, the world went black.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Hello, everybody! I'm still around. No legitimate excuses like last time, though, I'm afraid. Just busy at work, and the weather on the East Coast has been…hot…and humid…and I only just got an air conditioner two days ago. Without that, I kind of just felt lethargic all the time—y'know, when my apartment was 95 degrees and humid.

I do want to thank everyone for your comments, though. They keep this going, and that's not a lie or an exaggeration. Without them, I imagine I would still finish this, but probably not until the winter when I got bored and could curl up with a blanket. Call it a dangerously externalized locus of self-worth, but comments are a stupidly huge incentive.

I have also re-uploaded all previous chapters, having read through and corrected for minor grammatical and spelling errors, and to make certain relaxed pronunciation in earlier sections better fit with the way characters speak (removing 'g' from '-ing' endings for Cyborg, for example; apparently, I had neglected that in some earlier sections). Nothing worth rereading, but just an FYI. If anybody catches any errors, let me know.

Thank you all for reading! As always, comments are wonderful. And I don't mean to give an ultimatum, but the truth is they do a lot to inspire devoting more time to hobby pieces like this.

 _Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately._

Chapter 9

The One Who Knocks

A single drop of awareness fell into the inky sea of Raven's vacant mind. Its ripples spread in every direction, illuminating the circuitry of her consciousness; cognitive systems hummed and whirred back to life, switching on one by one.

Beneath her, soft and solid.

The smell.

The medical bay, a recovery bed.

Her senses reached out.

Concern, worry, and guilt. Frustration, restrained but bordering on anger.

She took a deep, filling breath and exhaled slowly through her nose. Opening her eyes, she found the others, all of them.

Next came the chorus of relieved sentiments, so expected that she hardly heard them at all. More pressing matters waited behind them—physically, behind the others who crowded around her: Robin, who held back, arms folded, eyes stern, jaw set. No attempt at all to hide his mixed and warring feelings, but displayed in full view, probably on purpose. A pillar of tempered indignation crackling behind the soothing mist of the others.

Once the commotion, and Starfire, had calmed down, Cyborg took the floor.

"Gave us quite a scare," he said. "Heart never stopped beatin', but for a while, couldn't even tell ya were in there. Not like your healin' trance."

"It's…not a trance. It's a failsafe," Raven admitted reluctantly. "When I started experimenting with my emotions, I designed it to…shut me down, cognitively…before I completely lose control."

"Before _what_?" Beast Boy asked. "You mean you…"

Shock, disbelief, more worry blended into fear.

Perfect…

Raven looked away, ashamed.

"Is she all right?" Robin asked from the back.

Cyborg gave a nod.

"Then if you all wouldn't mind, I think the three of us need to have a conversation," Robin told the others. His eyes narrowed pointedly behind his mask. "Alone."

Cyborg touched a reassuring hand to Raven's shoulder before acquiescing to their leader's request, Beast Boy not far behind him.

"Uh…sure," the changeling said before making his way out. He looked back. "Glad you're okay."

Starfire, meanwhile, merely smiled at Raven and Jinx. Upon her exit, though, she stopped in front of Robin.

Courage, confidence. Staunch, fearless support.

She touched her hand gently to his face, but he didn't flinch.

"You are upset," she said. "I have observed that, sometimes, when you are upset, you speak or act rashly, without consideration. As our leader, I understand that you must have this 'conversation.' However, as my more-than-a-friend, understand this." She moved her hand to his chest, pressing a firm finger into it—but he didn't flinch. "You will _not_ discourage our friend from exploring her feelings, and you will _not_ discourage our friends from exploring their feelings for each other. Or I will be discouraged in mine."

Touching his face one more time, and seemingly without awaiting a reply she knew he would not give in the moment, Starfire resumed her exit.

Jinx crossed her arms, rolling her eyes in a petulant display. "Oh, _here_ we go. The bird boy and the bees."

No reaction.

"I know what you're going to say," Raven told him. "But you _know_ me. I wouldn't have taken anything I considered a risk. I thought…" She realigned and tried again. "I misjudged. Underestimated. This is all new to me. I thought I had things under control, and I made a mistake. I'm sorry."

"I know," Robin said finally, in a tone whose sincerity did not seem to match the hardness of his body language. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked. "You heard Star. And honestly, I feel the same. Most of me. Part of me…"

In the interlude, somewhere in the bowels of the tower, a bat chirped and fluttered about in the gloom.

Robin's eyes winced. "I can't… _ignore_ that part of me. As much as I want to. It's there, and it's sounding warning sirens all over the place, and it makes sense. For the first time in your life, in the history of this team, you can't trust your own judgment. The territory is so unfamiliar that any call you make is a shot in the dark, and with the consequences at stake…" He looked down and away. "But…we're more than a team. Much more." He paused, seemingly in thought. "I won't ask you to stop, couldn't. And I won't allow the risk, can't. So I'm asking this." He switched to Raven, eye to eye. "What am I supposed to do?"

With a screech, a black raven engulfed the empath and carried her through the ceiling.

Alone with him now, Jinx strolled right up to Robin, poking him with her finger. "I don't care what ya do, but in case ya didn't notice from the way I blew my girlfriend's bulb last night with emotional _rebound_ , I'm pretty into this. And you're _not_ gonna screw it up for me. Capiche?"

Before Robin could respond, whether he would, Raven returned, book in-hand. Opening it to a specific page, she handed it to Robin.

He looked it over, along with Jinx, and then they both turned their attention back to Raven, at which point she explained her plan in detail.

When she finished, Robin read over the passage one more time, then looked up. "This would work?"

"It's the best I can think of," Raven replied.

"You know he'll want a set," Robin pointed out, no question in his tone as to who he meant.

"I expected as much," Raven said.

Jinx offered nothing.

Robin still seemed stuck in consideration, scrutinizing the angles.

"Side-effects?" he asked.

"Feverish symptoms, elevated temperature, general discomfort," Raven guessed.

Jinx scoffed.

Robin caught it. "Something to add?"

" _General discomfort_ ," Jinx said. "Yeah, right. For me, maybe. But she ain't human."

"So?" Robin asked.

"So there's no way to know the exact reaction," Raven explained, although she had hoped that would've slipped by unnoticed. "It…could itch, or be uncomfortably cold—"

"Or _burn_ ," Jinx said with emphasis. "They could melt your friggin' skin off, for all we know! Not like it's ever been _tested_."

Robin closed the book. "I agree. While I can see your point in having them around as an insurance policy—and even applaud you for volunteering—I also agree that we should test them before we bet the world on whether they work. I'll contact the League, track down Fate. Then we get these things made, reconvene with the others, do some tests and go from there."

"Lovely. Another team meeting regarding my romantic development," Raven quipped.

"I don't see any other way. Not until we know more," Robin decided. "Do you need to be present when Fate makes these? For the infusion?"

Raven shook her head. "A vial of blood should be enough. I imagine it's…probably better that way."

Robin acknowledged with a nod. "Wait here. I'll brief the others, then send Cyborg in for the sample."

"Uh-huh. And what do _we_ do while you're all off doin' whatever?" Jinx asked, still clearly displeased.

"Take some time. Both of you," Robin told her in a more understanding tone. "You had a rough night. Go out somewhere. Talk. Decompress. I'll contact you when everything's ready." He approached Raven, returning her book.

When she took it and tugged, Robin didn't let go.

"We'll figure this out," he told her, then released.

"If the League doesn't decide to cut out the _maybe_ and neutralize the risk first," Raven replied.

Nothing further, the boy wonder turned to leave.

"They wouldn't be wrong," Raven said, causing him to pause momentarily at the door.

The door swished open when Robin walked out, closing behind him.

Jinx practically threw up her arms. "The heck was _that_?"

"My emotional fulfillment weighed against all the lives of the universe?" Raven asked her. "It's…pretty much the most selfish risk anyone could ever take."

Jinx set her hands on her hips brazenly. "Yeah? Well accordin' to you, ya saved the stupid universe to begin with, so from where I'm standin', it owes ya one."

"Maybe," Raven admitted. "Still, you can't deny the—"

"The risk, yeah. I know. Blah, blah, blah." Jinx rolled her eyes again, then snickered. "Hey, while we're at it, might as well axe half the League. Right? I mean, 'Supes. C'mon. Guy sneezes wrong and knocks a whole galaxy outta whack."

Raven offered only a very mindful stare in response, one that gave eerie and frightening depth to Jinx's remark.

A few seconds later, Raven turned her eyes away. "It's…a valid point: not just those with powers, but sentient life itself as the greatest and most inevitable threat to the universe."

"Valid _point_?" Jinx asked in shock. "That was a joke! Like, to demonstrate _absurdity_?"

"Is it?" Raven asked. "Altering reality. Obliterating star systems. Bringing nightmares to life, or designing machines to do any or all of the above. Is it really that absurd, to wonder whether lower life—the universe, in general—would be better off without us in it? If we had never been?"

Seconds ticked past as Jinx watched her companion peer through the floor into infinity; having begun with a joke, she now found herself considering her words very carefully, under the distinct impression that she had stumbled into a minefield Raven had been navigating, or constructing, for a very long time.

Jinx sat down beside her. "Okay, I get where you're comin' from. Kinda…makes sense, when ya think about it, or at least that _you_ would think about it. Y'know, considerin' your dad and what ya were supposed to do. But…maybe you're lookin' at it the wrong way."

Raven glanced up, unsure but willing to entertain the notion.

"Ya said _sentient_ life. Right?" Jinx asked, trying to articulate something she had yet to really wrap her head around. "But, like…doesn't that just…I dunno… _evolve_ , or something? From regular life? So, like…if ya really want that way of thinkin' to work, ya can't just stop at sentient life. Ya gotta go the whole way—and ya can't even really stop there, 'cause where does that come from? Like, atoms and molecules and stuff. Right? Over time. So you'd have to nix all that, too. And at that point, _what's_ the point. Y'know?"

Raven remained quiet.

"It's like…it's _inherently_ risky. Existence, or whatever. Like it's designed that way. So I guess…you're sayin' it's too risky for ya to be happy," Jinx tried to sum up. "But I'm sayin' everybody deserves the _chance_ to be happy, or else there's no point to the risk of bein' alive at all."

Raven sported a small smile. "Even if hurting people is what makes someone happy?"

Jinx scrunched her lips. "Y'know what I mean."

"I do," Raven admitted. "And…it might interest you to know: now you're starting to sound like a hero."

"So no more of this self-depreciating crap?" Jinx asked.

"No more self-depreciating crap," Raven replied.

"Good. Now get up, bleed into a tube somewhere, and date me," Jinx demanded.

"Date you?" Raven asked.

"Duh. Ya heard bird-brain. Take me someplace fun. Someplace that's _not_ a dead dimension where ya drag my soul around on a leash."

"I'm…bad at 'fun,' in the usual sense," Raven told her.

Jinx grinned. "Well, it's a good thing I'm not a girl in the usual sense. Just pick somewhere ya like."

"Someplace _I_ like?" Raven asked.

"Sure." Jinx picked up Raven's hand in both of hers, tugging it until the empath rose from her seat, suddenly less fervent and more sincere, more genuine, almost apologetic. "Look, I had a great night—y'know, up until that one part—and you had a not so great one, so…just pick someplace ya like to go. If you're havin' a good time, I'll have a good time."

Raven raised an eyebrow. "Coming from someone who isn't an empath, that's probably indicative of a low-grade co-dependent personality disorder."

Jinx batted her eyelids. "Never said I was sane."

"Hence your interest in me."

" _Maybe_."

The door to the medical bay slid open to reveal Cyborg on one side and the two women on the other, in rather close proximity.

"Am I interuptin' somethin'?" Cyborg asked.

Raven straightened up. "No."

Jinx didn't move a muscle, but turned her eyes on the metal man with a smirk.

A few minutes later, Cyborg had secured Raven's blood sample and set about calibrating his machine for another trip to the dead dimension. At Raven's request, he had promised to personally see that any unused blood got destroyed after their work was done, with the warning that, in the wrong hands with the right knowledge, it could be used to grave and nefarious effect.

They stood in the hall outside the medical bay.

"So…where're we goin'?" Jinx asked.

Raven thought about it, but came up more or less empty. At least, as far as places she went for enjoyment. She mulled over the stock options of the pier, a carnival, the movies, maybe a restaurant.

But then, it occurred to her that she needn't choose any of those, that doing so might actually have been disrespectful. After all, she didn't enjoy them. Pretending she did would have been tantamount to lying, something she did lightly for friends and acquaintances in an attempt to put their 'fun' above her preferences.

Jinx, however, didn't want that. Didn't want to be just a friend, even a close friend like the others. She wanted more. Claimed she did, anyway. Honesty, then, would be the most respectful option, to honor Jinx's wish to go somewhere _she_ enjoyed.

The truth, however, was that she rarely experienced enjoyment in the way others did. In fact, the closest she probably came was…

"I know a place," she decided.

"Sweet!" Jinx latched onto Raven's arm excitedly, all smiles as the black soul-self appeared and swallowed them.

They emerged to the sound of crows squawking and fluttering away.

Scanning the horizon, Jinx took a few steps forward to the edge of the great rooftop, or what remained of it. Once she got a better look, she found them atop a ruined cathedral. "Uh…"

"This…is where it happened," Raven said.

Jinx turned to her in confusion. "Where—" She cut her own question short when the meaning dawned on her; her eyes widened and her smile drained. "Oh."

Raven stood quietly in the moments that followed, cape flowing gently in the evening breeze. Apparently, she had lost a whole day.

Could've been worse, she decided. No way to tell how long her kill-switch would put her out. Could've been _days_ , plural. Or weeks.

Or worse.

"So…" Jinx paced idly, uncomfortably, hands clasped behind her back. "This is…fun?"

Raven shook her head. "I told you. I'm bad at 'fun.' This is…balance. It's…about as close as I get."

"Okay," Jinx said. "Care to share?"

Raven looked out. "This is it. This is where the world ended. Where I gave up and _let_ it end, where my father first broke through into our dimension—because I let him in."

Jinx's brow furrowed. "You—"

"To save them," Raven said. "I thought… I _knew_ , if they kept trying to save me, they… It…was them or the universe, and…I chose them." She allowed a moment of silence.

The gears in Jinx's head turned with the new information, reprocessing the conversation they had just finished in the medical bay. Suddenly, it was no wonder the empath seemed so at home in wrestling with the few versus the many. She had done it before, and been on the other side.

"Do you know why I did it?" Raven asked once Jinx's shifting emotions suggested her inner thoughts had reached a conclusion of some kind.

Jinx shook her head lightly.

Raven turned to her. "Can I show you something?"

"Okay." Jinx said.

"When it comes to my father and his arrival here—the purpose for which I was created—I can be lightly prophetic. These aren't like the nightmare I showed you. They're not baseless fears or insecurities. They also aren't true prophecies," she made clear. "They're possibilities, derived from deep meditation and reflective not of this future, but of the roads not taken. Stories written by the decisions I _didn't_ make but that I could have. These are what might have been."

Raven touched Jinx's head, in the same way as when she had shared the nightmare.

A chill wind caressed her. Her vision opened to the darkened streets of Jump City, seen from a rooftop. Her soul-self embraced her as she phased from the roof down to the alleyway below, careful to avoid others as she embarked on her nightly routine of scavenging for sustenance and anything useful she could find.

Memories of the League and other missed opportunities swirled in her mind, haunting it like ghosts she could not seem to banish. In the day, they invaded her meditation with tapestries woven from shame, self-loathing, and frustration. At night, they whispered her regrets, highlighting her isolation and held at bay only by her determination to endure.

Then, one night, a chance.

A mugging.

Hidden, she thwarted the attempt, taking guilty pleasure in the excitement of doing good. She revealed herself after, but paused in confusion at the woman she had saved, now a cowering beacon of singular emotion: fear.

Of her.

Uncertain, she vanished back into the dark.

Desperation.

A few more nights.

A few more tries.

Disappointment.

The League. The woman. The rest.

Disillusionment, depression.

Distance.

The old routine.

Time passed.

Jinx struggled to make sense of the thoughts as they came flooding in, to stay on the largest river while smaller tributaries shot off, trickled out, and dried up.

Winter, the pier.

The snow, the ice and the cold.

Peculiar thoughts, staring into the water. Dark contemplations of release, of abdication.

Suddenly, a cry for help.

A group of men, dragging one toward the water's edge.

One more chance.

She chased off the group and moved to help the man.

He moved away.

"Wait."

Fear. Always fear.

"Please. I—"

He scrambled back.

Frustration, anger, rage.

Red.

…

Wet, slick-sticky.

Blood.

Trembling.

Regret, horror, disgust.

Panic.

In shock, she fell back to a nearby building and huddled into a corner, curled up as tightly as her shivering body could manage; rocking in place, she buried her head in her knees and forced her eyes shut, sobbing quietly and clutching her head, digging her fingers into her skull.

Why hadn't he understood? Why didn't any of them _understand_?

Why had he—

If he had just—

It didn't have to _be_ that way.

Why did it always have to _be_ that way?

Every _day_.

All the _time_.

Why did everything have to _hurt_?

 _But it didn't._

 _It didn't have to hurt._

 _It hurt because she let it._

 _Because she allowed herself to feel it. To feel anything._

 _Didn't she understand, yet? Had she never considered?_

 _Conflicted, every moment. Tortured, every day. Why? An empty scale balanced just as well._

 _An empty vessel. Devoid of feeling, devoid of power. Weak, but at peace._

 _Meditation. Time. She could accomplish it._

 _Why had she not?_

She stopped rocking, in thought.

 _She did not wish to be weak._

 _Did not wish to be devoid of power._

 _She wished to control it._

Her breathing calmed as she worked through the implications.

Her power required emotion. Emotions precluded control.

 _Some, perhaps. But…not all_.

Maybe…

Maybe not all emotions were as prone, or even able, to spiral out of control. If she could just find one that didn't inherently want to run wild, she could latch onto it and sever the rest. She really _hadn't_ ever considered that. Why had no one ever _told_ her?

 _Was it really such a difficult question?_

No…

No, it wasn't.

They hadn't told her because they hadn't wanted to. Because they hadn't ever really _wanted_ her to control her power; they had wanted her to be afraid of it, afraid of herself, to spend her life neutered and torn. And if she'd let them, if they'd had enough time, they would have 'helped' her in learning to cut off her emotions completely—for their sake, their safety, not hers. Never hers.

No more.

She stood up, sifting through her emotions one-by-one in search of the one that would finally allow her the control she had always sought, always deserved, that would finally allow her to no longer bemoan her own existence for the sake of the self-serving and the ungrateful, but instead take _pride_ in it.

 _Perhaps…she had already found it._

In agreement, or at least willing enough to test the theory, she embraced her newfound pride in herself and, in one swift, mental motion—with only the briefest of hesitations—shut off everything else.

Her heart slowed. Her thoughts clarified, normalized.

In the distance, footsteps. Running in her direction.

The group she'd scared off, along with many more.

They pointed. Shouted. Raised their weapons.

Curiosity gripped her, and she called upon a depth of her power she would not have considered moments before, channeling it into an illusion that saw the men turn on one another in horror; they opened fire. When those who survived attempted to flee, the shadows sprang to life around them —reacting to her very thoughts—with grim precision and left them in pieces.

She stood amid the gore in the aftermath and felt nothing, only that she had finally reached a thing long in coming, a thing both natural and deserved, as though she had, at long last, begun to swim with the current instead of against it. Peace and balance filled her, and she resolved herself entirely to the notion that she had taken the first step to her natural role.

That she existed not as a person, not as an individual, but as a thing—like fire, or lightning, or some cosmic event—not to be judged but merely to _be_ : like fire, to burn. No right, no wrong. Just to burn. Just to be.

Time passed.

The next series of events came as jumbled snippets, difficult for Jinx to separate or discern, as though the visions themselves encompassed so many possibilities that it was impossible to properly distinguish between them.

Confrontations with the Titans.

Confrontations with the League.

Some she survived, took them all, stripped the universe of its protectors a few at a time as she softened it, readied it and presented it to her father on a platter as a demonstration of her worth and continued usefulness. Every severed emotion atrophied over time, withered and died until she could no longer recall bygone sensations like pity or remorse, compassion or sympathy, joy or sorrow or rudeness or even rage, all shriveled and gone, lingering only as passing empathic curiosities. Through it all, she felt nothing—only pride in herself, in a roll realized and fulfilled, in a place taken.

And so her father arrived, to great fanfare and unparalleled procession, to a dimension already enslaved. And so his power grew, and hers with it, and his pride in her and hers in herself. And so she departed, on to the next.

The Gem.

The Dark Lady.

The Herald of the End.

Some, she survived.

Others, she did not.

Jinx recoiled back, pulling her head away. She stared at Raven, wide-eyed. "Wh-Why would you _show_ me th—"

"Sometimes it's Kal-El," Raven said without missing a beat, turning to look out over the city. "Other times, Doctor Fate. The Flash. One of the lanterns. It…depends how cocky I get. Sometimes, I win." She turned back to Jinx. "But…you saw that."

"I get it. Okay? But ya didn't answer my—"

"Would you like to see the difference?" Raven asked, somewhat forcefully. "Between this and that?"

She held out her hands again.

Wary but curious, Jinx approached.

The world rushed away, and she found herself in an alley in Jump City. In the distance, a shackled Starfire, eyes a furious green, tore apart everything in her path.

The Titans—Robin in his uniform, Cyborg in a gray hooded sweatshirt, and Beast Boy wearing a mask—took cover behind a bus from a hail of starbolts that shredded the block.

Starfire dropped to her knees, catching her breath—anger, frustration, desperation, fury.

But no malicious intent.

"Girl's gonna wreck the whole city," Cyborg said.

"I won't let her." Robin socked his fist into his palm. "I won't lose this fight."

The group rushed out.

She extended a hand, summoning her soul self in a grand, screeching display; the barrier stopped the others in their tracks.

Sinking into the ground, she emerged from the sidewalk behind them. "Maybe…fighting isn't the answer."

Raven released Jinx's head. "One moment," she said. "One chance. One choice. That's the difference, between everything I am…and everything that never was. One choice that saved my life…maybe the universe…" She looked down at the cathedral. "And one that nearly ended it. I need you to understand," she implored, then took on a look of absolute conviction. "This is the best…possible…version of me, and I have to work _every day_ to keep it that way. That's why I come here: for perspective. To remind me of the importance, the potential _consequences_ of every…decision…I make."

"Okay…" Jinx said, trying to make sense of things. "Thank you…for showin' me all that, I guess…" she offered, not really sure what else to say.

Raven's conviction gave way to something closer to sheepishness. "I guess this isn't really what you meant when you asked to go out, but… I…know you're not a fan of the irons," she said. "So I…wanted to bring you here, help you understand how careful I need to be, and why."

Jinx moved forward, raising her arms in preparation, but stopped when Raven made to do the same; she smiled, giggling lightly. "You're new, so…lemme show ya." Guiding down the empath's arms, she held her instead.

For her part, Raven just followed cues as best she could and let it happen. Even hugs, it turned out, had their own subtle language she hadn't been aware of: who embraced whom, whether both parties did, seemingly determined by the situation and who intended to comfort whom.

Lots to learn.

One hand moved from where it had been on her shoulder and came to rest gently on the back of her head.

Reassurance and relaxation radiated from her partner.

Raven relaxed in response, letting her eyes shut and her head nestle in, and then realized. "You're manipulating me."

"Hm?" Jinx asked, going for innocent but landing closer to someone caught in the cookie jar.

Raven let out an entirely unconvincing grumble, which would've been even less so had Jinx been able to see her peaceful smile, otherwise content to soak in the emotions—manipulative or not.

Some people wore makeup, or styled their hair certain ways, wore certain clothes, used perfumes or certain tones of voice or body language to send signals to their partners, influence the ways their partners felt. Raven almost found it funny; she had long considered herself immune to such shallow attempts.

Jinx, as it turned out, could manage the emotions she broadcasted to achieve a similar end, effectively taking the one thing Raven had always considered her most unfair person-to-person advantage and turning it against her.

Maybe it wasn't so unfair after all.

Still, it…wasn't bad, either.

The pair recoiled at a golden light that pierced the encroaching eve. Their eyes adjusted in time to catch a glimpse of the monolithic ankh and the figure silhouetted against its radiance. The figure hovered in place as the portal vanished, and Raven removed herself from Jinx's hold and stepped forward.

Fate, it seemed, had finally come knocking.


End file.
